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A Dickens Reci.de 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 




A READING BY CHARLES DICKENS 



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A DICKENS READER 

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ARRANGED BY 

ELLA M. POWERS 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
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COPYRIGHT, 191 1, BY ELLA M. POWERS 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






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The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly 

noble Dickens, — every inch of him 

an honest man. 

Carlyle. 



PREFACE 

This book is designed to present to its readers 
a few brilliant examples from the many that are 
to be found in the work of the eminent English 
novelist, Charles Dickens, and to induce in them 
a profound interest in his varied writings. The 
compiler seeks to make intimately familiar a few 
pages that serve to illustrate the humor and 
pathos of this unrivalled writer and the skill in 
description and narration wherein he so greatly 
excelled. It is hoped that young persons who 
may read this volume may be stimulated by it to 
an extensive knowledge of the author's works in 
their complete forms. 

Preceding each selection is a note regarding 
the book from which the extract has been taken. 
With but few abridgments, the author's diction 
has been carefully followed. The selections have 
been used not only on account of surpassing liter- 
ary merit, nor wholly because they have become 
especial favorites in the minds of many discrim- 
inating readers, but also for the reason that, in 
frequent instances, they teach forcible lessons of 
honor, nobility, kindliness, good faith, gentle- 
ness, charity, and a certain broad sympathy with 
animate nature in its manifold forms. 

Moreover it is hoped that the book will prove 



vi PREFACE 

useful to persons of adult age who may have 
lacked hitherto the opportunity and have not now 
the leisure to read the entire works of the " mas- 
ter hand that drew the sorrows of the English 
poor " and lightened and cheered the lives of so 
many readers throughout the English-speaking 
world. 



CONTENTS 

Classification of Selections viii 

Charles Dickens ....... ix 

The Class in English Spelling and Philosophy . 1 

A Child's Dream of a Star 5 

Mr. Winkle on Skates 11 

Mr. Winkle goes gunning , . 16 

A Pickwickian Excursion . . . . .21 

Mr. Pickwick's Slide ...... 29 

Nell and her Grandfather 33 

Nell and her Grandfather desert the Town . 42 

The Death of Little Nell 46 

Scrooge 48 

Fezziwig's Ball 60 

Christmas Dinner at Bob Cratchit's ... 65 

The Hour of Sailing 72 

A Head-Wind 75 

Niagara Falls . . 78 

A Shipwreck 81 

Oliver Twist at the Workhouse] . . . .88 
Oliver Twist and the Country Life ... 92 

Charley 96 

Polly 105 

Paul Dombey at the Dance 114 

The Last Hours of Little Paul .... 117 
Ruth Pinch and her Housekeeping .... 124 
Tom Pinch goes to London . . . . . . 131 

Our Next-Door Neighbor 136 

The Burning Prison 140 

The Coliseum 146 

The Buried Cities of Italy 148 

An Ascent of Mount Vesuvius 152 

Alphabetical List of Dickens's More Important 

Works 157 

References . 157 



CLASSIFICATION OF SELECTIONS 



HUMOR 

The Class in English Spelling Mr. Winkle Goes Gunning. 

and Philosophy. Mr. Winkle on Skates. 

Fezziwig's Ball. A Pickwickian Excursion. 
Mr. Pickwick's Slide. 

PATHOS 

The Death of Little Nell. Oliver Twistatthe Workhouse. 

The Last Hours of Little Paul. Our Next-Door Neighbors. 

Nell and Her Grandfather de- Paul Dombey at the Dance, 

sert the Town. A Shipwreck. 

NARRATION 

Charley. Polly. 

A Child's Dream of a Star. Ruth Pinch and Her House- 
Christmas Dinner at Bob keeping. 

Cratchit's. Scrooge. 
Nell and Her Grandfather. 



DESCRIPTION 

V 

An Ascent of Mount Vesuvius. The Hour of Sailing. 

The Buried Cities of Italy. Niagara Falls. 

The Burning Prison. Oliver Twist and the Country 

The Coliseum. Life. 

A Head-Wind. Tom Pinch goes to London. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Reading by Charles Dickens . . . Frontispiece 

Gadshill, from the Rear xviii 

A Pickwickian Excursion ...... 22 

Mr. Pickwick's Slide 30 

Nell and Her Grandfather . . . . .40 

Fezziwig's Ball 64 

Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim 68 

Tom Pinch Starts for London .... 132 



CHARLES DICKENS 

There was once a boy who kept his mind 
upon the great and famous man that he would 
like to become. He thought of this so much and 
so often, and believed in it so thoroughly, that 
he at last grew to be a man the whole world 
learned to know and to love. 

His name was Charles Dickens ; he was born 
at Landport, England, about one hundred years 
ago, for his birthday was February 7, 1812. His 
father was a government clerk having a salary 
far too small to give the boy many pretty play- 
things ; — in fact, he did not have what other 
children possessed; so, in imagination he made 
most of his playthings and invented many of his 
games. But he did not complain, even if there 
were days when there was only a scanty allowance 
of bread to eat. 

When this " very queer, small boy" was two 
years old, the family moved to the great, strange, 
lonesome city of London. And indeed, it was 
very lonesome there to the frail, sensitive boy and 
he was not sorry when, two years later, they 
moved to Chatham. Here were chalk hills and 
deep green lanes ; bits of woodland and marshes, 
over which he could wander ; and at night he 
and his sister Fanny could watch the stars from 



x CHARLES DICKENS 

their windows. Yes, the boy liked Chatham far 
better than London. 

One of his best-loved friends was a book. No 
happiness was quite so satisfying as a book in an 
unmolested corner of an old neglected bookroom 
in their house. Here he would sit and read Don 
Quixote, The Vicar of Wakefield, The Arabian 
Nights, Robinson Crusoe, and other favorite 
stories. 

When he was nine years old, the family re- 
turned to London. There he would wander along 
some of the city streets, — not a very pretty part 
of the city either, — for there was a great deal 
of dust, much wretchedness, many beggars, and 
filth. Such things the boy disliked. 

He soon began to realize that his father was 
poor, — very poor, — and he knew that their 
home was a shabby one. With tired, aching feet, 
and a heavy little heart, the boy would daily 
trudge along in the glaring sun or the heavy 
mist, wondering and wondering what he could 
possibly do to increase the family income, for he 
knew that his father did not get money enough 
for their needs. 

On some days the boy did not have enough to 
eat; and with hungry eyes and a keen appetite, he 
would stop in front of some baker's window and 
look wistfully and long at the tempting array of 
cakes and pies and buns which were displayed 
there ; but these were not for him. So with a 



CHARLES DICKENS xi 

good heart, and a last, longing look, he would 
summon all his courage and trudge along down 
the narrow street. 

Struggles and hardships were met cheerfully 
each day. Charles was then old enough to feel 
acutely poverty and suffering ; and indeed, long 
after this, he could not speak of these dark days 
without a shiver of pain and with tears in his 
blue eyes. 

Then there came a day still sadder than all the 
others when the ten-year old boy was told that 
his father had lost his position ; that his father 
owed much money, and that he must be sent to 
prison because he could not pay his debts. This 
seemed very hard, but it was according to the 
English law at that time and laws must be obeyed. 
Then the boy felt hopeless and helpless. Oh, 
the disgrace of it all ! His heart seemed ready 
to break. His father in the Marshalsea prison for 
debt ! His own father ! The words rang in the 
ears of the sensitive boy night and day. 

Were there ever such pinching days of hard- 
ship and shame, such weary days of anxiety and 
despair? The boy determined to do something 
for the relief of the family. What should he do ? 
What could he do? With a sorrowful heart, he 
took his precious books, one by one, to a pawn- 
shop and sold them. Soon he had parted with 
all of them, but he was too brave to admit the 
grief that he felt. 



xii CHARLES DICKENS 

The days passed and after many weary efforts, 
a position was finally obtained for him in a black- 
ing factory. Day after day he walked four miles 
to his work and tramped homeward over the long 
way every night. Hour after hour he wearily 
pasted blue labels upon pots of paste blacking. 
And through all this, his heart was brave and un- 
flinching. Would not his six shillings each week 
keep himself and his dear ones from starvation? 

At this time his mother went to live in the 
prison with his father, but Charles had to live 
apart from them in a little attic room. Away up 
and up a long flight of narrow, creaky, steep 
stairs he would climb each day to his dreary, little 
room. He always looked so brave and cheery 
that no one guessed the secret suffering that he 
endured. What a solitary little waif he was ! No 
home ; no books ; no hope ; no help. Although he 
felt neglected, and the loneliness was bitter, the 
boy was not discouraged. 

In his wretched condition, he might easily have 
become, with many of the other boys, " a little 
robber or a little vagabond." But every tempta- 
tion was manfully conquered and he fled from 
dangers which he felt were near; yet nothing es- 
caped his eye. He learned to know thoroughly 
the life among those boys. 

After a little time he took lodgings near the 
prison. Then he was allowed to go and see his 
mother and father every day and often ate with 



CHARLES DICKENS 



Xlll 



them on Sunday. But he never told any one that 
his father was in prison. Oh, no ! That secret 
was humiliating and his sensitive heart felt too 
deeply the shame. 

He was quick to learh and he was deeply in- 
terested in the persons he saw. Daily he met the 
queer and the pitiful ; the poor, ragged, and hope- 
less. He never forgot them. The scenes did not 
harden his heart, but made him feel very gentle 
and tender toward all who were unhappy and 
suffering. 

After a time, there came a brighter period 
when the father was released from prison, his 
affairs having been adjusted and improved. Then 
it was that the boy was told that he could go to 
school once more. What joy this was ! Rude 
knocks or other hardships at any school could 
not be worse than those weary months in the 
blacking establishment. And so it was a very 
cheerful boy who started forth for study at Wel- 
lington House school. 

He liked wonderfully well a certain club that 
was formed among the boys for the purpose of 
circulating stories and having private theatricals. 
From tables and chairs a stage was improvised 
and it was all very fine indeed with Dickens to 
take the part of several characters. Once he wrote 
a little play, — and very tragic it was too ! It 
was called, The Sultan of India. His admiring 
young friends declared it to be the very finest and 



xiv CHARLES DICKENS 

best thing they had ever heard, or seen or, read 
about. No doubt it was. Their enthusiasm was 
boundless and they said to Dickens, " You will 
certainly be famous some day." Dickens was 
pleased with their boyish approval and gaily re- 
plied, " That is just what I intend to become. 
Some day, I hope to be a learned and distin- 
guished gentleman." 

And then his stories ! Why, he could tell the 
most marvellous tales ! Even at this early date, 
what fame he did achieve among his associates 
as a story teller ! Could any one else give such 
reality to the characters he had himself created ? 
Surely not. And Dickens was greatly pleased 
with his success as an entertainer. 

When he was fifteen years old, it became neces- 
sary for him to earn some money. He secured a 
position in a lawyer's office, where he remained 
for nearly two years. He there had opportuni- 
ties for close observation of men and manners. 
This was of great use to him in his literary work. 
This bright, eager boy wasted no time you may 
be sure. He was the sort of boy, too, that every- 
body loves. He thought high thoughts. He tried 
to live and do his very best each day. 

When he was seventeen, he became a reporter 
on a newspaper. Instead of idly wandering about 
when his work was over, he spent many of his 
leisure hours in a reading room at the British 
Museum. He read and studied and then read 



CHARLES DICKENS xv 

more books. He mastered the intricate system of 
shorthand, knowing this would help him to be a 
better reporter. How he practised those lessons ! 
Many an evening he sat up until midnight try- 
ing to acquire speed and accuracy with the 
troublesome, puzzling little curves and lines, all of 
which, when mastered, would help him to a bet- 
ter position. Two years were spent in reporting 
law cases in the courts. All this work gave him 
an added insight into various conditions of life. 
And so he lived and worked and studied. 

Two years later, he entered the parliamentary 
gallery and became a reporter of important polit- 
ical speeches in and out of Parliament. This 
duty still greatly enlarged his knowledge and 
for five years he distinguished himself in that 
work. Among eighty or ninety reporters, Charles 
Dickens was acknowledged to be the best. Strict 
accuracy and quickness were required and he 
was determined to excel. Whatever he did was 
done well. 

We see him with a postchaise and four gallop- 
ing across the country, taking notes of some 
speech, then writing at a brisk rate by the dim 
light of a lantern, and dashing back to the print- 
ing office with his notes all perfectly correct. 
Again, what if the coach was delayed, the horses 
exhausted, a coach wheel broken or stuck in the 
mud ? It seemed to make no difference in the 
punctuality of Dickens. In some way he reached 



xvi CHARLES DICKENS 

the newspaper office and his copy was passed in 
as if nothing unfortunate had happened. How 
he did it, no one knew, only Charles Dickens was 
always to be depended upon under any circum- 
stances. 

In 1833, when he was twenty-one years old, 
he wrote several sketches of street life and they 
were sent to the Evening Chronicle, a newspaper 
published in London. These sketches were signed, 
"Boz." They were totally unlike anything that 
had ever been written. They were so good and 
were so well done that he was asked to write 
more. He copied no man's style. It is always 
useless for a man to imitate another. For this 
work Dickens got many suggestions from scenes 
that he knew about in real life. 

Then a publishing firm wished him to write 
some humorous sketches. His next book was 
called Pickwick Papers. This work made him 
famous. People who read it laughed ; read it 
again and laughed again. They said, "Who is 
this 'Boz'? " " He must write more for us. We 
must read everything he writes." Everywhere 
this work attracted attention. Forty thousand 
copies were sold each month. This success meant 
for Charles Dickens much money and comfort, 
such as he had never before known. 

The next year he published his first novel, 
Oliver Twist. Those who read it could not for- 
get it because it made a deep and lasting impres- 



CHARLES DICKENS xvii 

sion upon the minds of its readers. It told them 
of life among the lower classes as it then existed 
and conditions of which they had little know- 
ledge. 

Prom this period the pen of Charles Dickens 
was never idle. For thirty-seven years it gave to 
the people book after book, each one differing 
from the previous work and each one marvellous. 
The author rapidly wrote and the people eagerly 
read. Wonderful were the characters he intro- 
duced to the world. His readers liked the way 
his books were written. They liked the humor 
and wit, the drollery and pathos in which his 
books abound. More than this, Dickens made 
every reader feel intimately acquainted with every 
character in his books. 

And so the years were full and overflowing 
with work. The tireless pen wrote on and the 
writer took little rest. The books were full of 
life, — real life, — and wider and wider became 
the popularity of the author. Dickens awakened 
a wide interest in the poor and the unfortunate. 
He brought to light many gross wrongs and im- 
proved conditions resulted. Daniel Webster once 
said of him, " All the men in Parliament have 
not done so much as Dickens to ameliorate the 
condition of the English poor." 

In 1842 Dickens visited America. Seldom had 
a royal visitor ever received a more hearty wel- 
come than greeted him here. He visited many of 



xviii CHARLES DICKENS 

the principal cities in this country and after re- 
turning to England, he wrote a book called 
American Notes which contained a record of 
much that he saw and did when in America. 

Dickens had several homes. Among them all, 
none was more beautiful than the lovely home at 
Gads Hill, the high, airy country retreat in Kent. 
Such beautiful trees of holly, ivy and laurel ! 
Such gardens full of strawberries in their season ! 
Such vines and climbing roses ! Then there was 
a charming little summer house which was pre- 
sented to him by one of his admirers. A tunnel 
from the front of the lawn and under the high- 
way emerged among the shrubbery at this sum- 
mer house. Here, he wrote and read, studied and 
thought. 

The pleasant brick mansion with its wealth of 
flowers and vines was no less attractive within. 
Prom his library window he could see the road 
where the Canterbury Pilgrims had passed ; the 
road where Falstaff and the robbers scampered 
away. Shakespeare had made the place famous. 
Dickens had always longed to live in this house ; 
for once, when a little boy, he had wandered out 
here with his father, who had then said, " If you 
work hard, you may, perhaps, live in a house 
like that some day/' These words sank deep into 
the heart of the boy. Now, at the height of his 
fame, this very same house had become his very 
own. 




H 






CHARLES DICKENS xix 

On a blustering November evening in 1867, 
Dickens again came to America. When he ar- 
rived in Boston, he was given a welcome that was 
never forgotten. The warm, mighty cheers were : 
" Health, Happiness and a Hearty Welcome to 
Charles Dickens!" What a ringing, joyous wel- 
come that was ! And how good it must have 
seemed to him to grasp the hands of Longfellow, 
Lowell, Holmes, and other friends ! 

This time he had come to read to the people 
in the United States. He was now a great author 
and reader. What masterly interpretations he 
gave and what vast audiences crowded to hear 
the famous man ! Was there ever such delight- 
ful humor ? Such pathos ? His readings as well 
as his books, touched the innermost hearts of the 
people. 

The poor boy had surely become " the learned 
and distinguished gentleman." Had he not met 
the world alone and unaided ? He had struggled 
and he had conquered. His whole life had been 
one continual march — up-hill sometimes to be 
sure, — but at the top was fame, fortune, love, 
and honor. The world had been made more 
cheerful and happy, more sympathetic and kind, 
because of the loving and lovable presence in it 
of Charles Dickens. 

There was no sadder sight than when, on one 
June day in 1870, the people filed reverently 



xx CHARLES DICKENS 

into Westminster Abbey to look their last upon 
one who had touched their lives so closely. Long 
lines of children came. They had read about 
Little Nell and loved Oliver Twist and they felt 
they had lost a friend. There, in Westminster 
Abbey, Dean Stanley said, " He taught the world 
great lessons of the eternal value of generosity, 
of purity, of kindness and of unselfishness." 

And so, among the great, the honored, the 
scholars, statesmen and warriors of England, 
Charles Dickens was laid to rest — one of the 
greatest novelists of all time. But the best monu- 
ment is his life work — the books which have 
been read and loved by millions of people 
throughout the world. 



A DICKENS READER 



NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nicklehy first appeared 
in 1839. 

This story was begun a few months after the completion of 
Pickwick Papers, It was first issued in monthly shilling num- 
bers and illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Browne). 

The main object of this work was to expose the great neglect 
of education in England and the disregard of it by the State. It 
exposes the atrocious brutalities perpetrated in the cheap York- 
shire schools then in existence. 

The author's purpose was effectual. Several years later the 
author was grateful to know that the system was gradually dis- 
appearing. 

Nicholas Nickleby has accepted a position as assistant master 
in a school in Yorkshire, England, which is kept by Mr. Squeers. 
He is brutal and cruel to the boys. In this selection (from 
Chapter VIII) he is showing to Nicholas his method of teach- 
ing. 

THE CLASS IN ENGLISH SPELLING AND 
PHILOSOPHY 

After some half-hour's delay, Mr. Squeers 
reappeared, and the boys took their places and 
their books, of which latter commodity the aver- 
age might be about one to eight learners. A few 
minutes having elapsed, during which Mr. 
Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a per- 
fect apprehension of what w T as inside all the 
books, and could say every word of their contents 



2 A DICKENS READER 

by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, 
that gentleman called up the first class. 

Obedient to this summons there ranged them- 
selves in front of the schoolmaster's desk half a 
dozen scarecrows, out at the knees and elbows, 
one of whom placed a torn and filthy book be- 
neath his learned eye. 

" This is the first class in English spelling and 
philosophy, Nickleby," said Squeers, beckoning 
Nicholas to stand beside him. " We '11 get up a 
Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, 
then, where 's the first boy?" 

" Please, sir, he 's cleaning the back parlor win- 
dow," said the temporary head of the philosoph- 
ical class. 

"So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers. " We 
go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby : 
the regular education system. C-1-e-a-n, clean ; 
verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, 
d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy 
knows this out of the book, he goes and does it. 
It's just the same principle as the use of the 
globes. Where's the second boy? " 

" Please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied 
a small voice. 

" To be sure," said Squeers, by no means dis- 
concerted. " So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, 
n-e-y, ney, bottinney; noun substantive, a know- 
ledge of plants. When he has learned that bot- 
tinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and 



NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 3 

knows 'em. That 's our system, Nickleby ; what 
do you think of it ? " 

" It 's a very useful one at any rate/' answered 
Nicholas. 

" I believe you/' rejoined Squeers, not remark- 
ing the emphasis of his usher. 1 " Third boy, 
what 's a horse ? " 

" A beast, sir/' replied the boy. 

" So it is/' said Squeers. " Ain't it, Nickleby ? " 

" 1 believe there is no doubt of that, sir," an- 
swered Nicholas. 

" Of course there is n't," said Squeers. " A horse 
is a quadruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, 
as everybody that's gone through the grammar 
knows, or else where 's the use of having gram- 
mars at all ? " 

" Where, indeed ! " said Nicholas abstractedly. 

"As you're perfect in that," resumed Squeers, 
turning to the boy, " go and look after my horse, 
and rub him down well, or I '11 rub you down. 
The rest of the class go and draw water up, till 
somebody tells you to leave off, for it 's washing 
day to-morrow, and they want the coppers 2 filled." 

So saying, he dismissed the first class to their 
experiments in practical philosophy, and eyed 
Nicholas with a look, half cunning and half 
doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain 
what he might think of him by this time. 

1 Usher : an assistant master in a school. 

2 Copper : a large copper boiler. 



4 A DICKENS READER 

" That's the way we do it, Nickleby," he said, 
after a pause. 

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner 
that was scarcely perceptible, and said that he 
saw it was. " And a very good way it is, too," 
said Squeers. " Now just take them fourteen 
little boys and hear them some reading, because, 
you know, we must begin to be useful. Idling 
about here won't do." 

Mr. Squeers said this, as if it had suddenly 
occurred to him, either that he must not say too 
much to his assistant or that his assistant did not 
say enough to him in praise of the establishment. 

The children were arranged in a semicircle 
round the new master, and he was soon listening 
to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of those 
stories of engrossing interest which are to be 
found in the more antiquated spelling books. 

In this exciting occupation, the morning 
lagged heavily on. At one o'clock, the boys, hav- 
ing previously had their appetites thoroughly 
taken away by stirabout 1 and potatoes, sat down in 
the kitchen to some hard salt beef, of which 
Nicholas was graciously permitted to take his 
portion to his own solitary desk, to eat it there 
in peace. 

After this, there was another hour of crouch- 
ing in the schoolroom and shivering with cold, 
and then school began again. 

1 Stirabout : a hasty pudding. 



A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR 1 

There was once a child, and he strolled about 
a good deal, and thought of a number of things. 
He had a sister, who was a child too, and his con- 
stant companion. These two used to wonder all 
day long. They wondered at the beauty of the 
flowers ; they wondered at the height and blue- 
ness of the sky ; they wondered at the depth of 
the bright water ; they wondered at the goodness 
and the power of God, who made the lovely 
world. 

They used to say to one another, sometimes, 
" Supposing all the children upon earth were to 
die ; would the flowers, and the water, and the 
sky, be sorry ? " They believed they would be 
sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children 
of the flowers, and the little playful streams, that 
gambol down the hillsides, are the children of the 
water; and the smallest bright specks, playing 
at hide-and-seek in the sky all night, must surely 
be the children of the stars ; and they would all 
be grieved to see their playmates, the children of 
men, no more. 

There was one clear, shining star, that used to 
come out in the sky before the rest, near the 
church spire, above the graves. It was larger and 

1 A Child's Dream of a Star is found in a volume entitled, 
Reprinted Pieces. It first appeared in 1850. 



6 A DICKENS READER 

more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, 
and every night they watched for it, standing 
hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first, 
cried out, " I see the star ! " And often they 
cried out both together, knowing so well when 
it would rise and where. So they grew to be such 
friends with it, that, before lying down in their 
beds, they always looked out once again, to bid 
it good-night; and when they were turning round 
to sleep, they used to say, "God bless the star ! " 

But while she was still very young, — 0, very, 
very young, — the sister drooped, and came to 
be so weak that she could no longer stand in the 
window at night ; and then the child looked 
sadly out by himself, and, when he saw the star, 
turned round and said to the patient, pale face 
on the bed, " I see the star ! " and then a smile 
would come upon the face, and a little weak 
voice used to say, " God bless my brother and 
the star ! " 

And so the time came — all too soon — when 
the child looked out alone, and when there was 
no face on the bed ; and when there was a little 
grave among the graves, not there before ; and 
when the star made long rays down towards him, 
as he saw it through his tears. 

Now, these rays were so bright, and they 
seemed to make such a shining way from earth 
to heaven, that when the child went to his soli- 
tary bed, he dreamed about the star; and he 



A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR 7 

dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train 
of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. 
And the star, opening, showed him a great world 
of light, where many more such angels waited to 
receive them. 

All these angels, who were waiting, turned 
their beaming eyes upon the people who were 
carried up into the star; and some came out 
from the long rows in which they stood, and 
fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them 
tenderly, and went away with them down avenues 
of light, and were so happy in their company, 
that, lying in his bed, he wept for joy. 

But there were many angels who did not go 
with them, and among them one he knew. The 
patient face that once had lain upon the bed was 
glorified and radiant ; but his heart found out 
his sister among all the host. 

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of 
the star, and said to the leader among those who 
had brought the people thither, " Is my brother 
come I 

And he said, " No." 

She was turning hopefully away, when the 
child stretched out his arms, and cried, " sister, 
I am here ! Take me ! " And then she turned 
her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night ; 
and the star was shining into the room, making 
long rays down towards him as he saw it through 
his tears. 



8 A DICKENS READER 

From that hour forth the child looked out 
upon the star as on the home he was to go to, 
when his time should come ; and he thought that 
he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the 
star too, because of his sister's angel gone before. 

There was a baby born to be a brother to the 
child ; and while he was so little that he never 
yet had spoken a word, he stretched his tiny form 
out on his bed, and died. 

Again the child dreamed of the opened star, 
and of the company of angels, and the train of 
people, and the rows of angels with their beam- 
ing eyes all turned upon those people's faces. 

Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my 
brother come?" 

And he said, " Not that one, but another." 

As the child beheld his brother's angel in her 
arms, he cried, " sister, I am here ! Take me ! " 
And she turned and smiled upon him. And the 
star was shining. 

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at 
his books, when an old servant came to him, and 
said, " Thy mother is no more. I bring her bless- 
ing on her darling son." 

Again at night he saw the star, and all that 
former company. Said his sister's angel to the 
leader, "Is my brother come?" 

And he said, "Thy mother ! " 

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all 
the star, because the mother was reunited to her 



A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR 9 

two children. And he stretched out his arms, and 
cried, " mother, sister, and brother, I am here ! 
Take me ! " And they answered him, " Not yet." 
And the star was shining. 

He grew to be a man whose hair was turning 
gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the fire- 
side, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed 
with tears, when the star opened once again. 

Said his sister's angel to the leader, " Is my 
brother come ? " 

And he said, " Nay, but his maiden daughter." 

And the man who had been the child saw his 
daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature 
among those three ; and he said, " My daughter's 
head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is 
round my mother's neck, and at her feet there is 
the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting 
from her, God be praised ! " And the star was 
shining. 

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his 
once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps 
were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. 
And one night, as he lay upon his bed, his child- 
ren standing round, he cried, as he had cried so 
long ago, " I see the star ! " 

And they whispered one another, " He is 
dying." 

And he said, " I am. My age is falling from 
me like a garment and I move toward the star 
as a child. And 0, my Father, now I thank thee 



io A DICKENS READER 

that it has often opened to receive those dear 
ones who await me." 

And the star was shining; and it shines upon 
his grave. 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 

The Pickwick Papers was published in 1836. The Posthu- 
mous Papers of the Pickwick Club contains neither pathos nor 
dramatic passages. It is a purely comedy story. It is humor- 
ous throughout. Hablot Browne, or "Phiz," illustrated the 
story. The success of this book was immediate and it laid the 
foundation of Dickens's fame. While the types portrayed are all 
caricatures, they are nevertheless individual types. Mr. Pick- 
wick is the founder of the Pickwick Club. From varied condi- 
tions of life are drawn the ludicrous characters which the book 
contains. Few authors have such skill in caricaturing as Dickens. 
He was a master of the art. This fact was early and universally 
acknowledged. The dialogues overflow with humor ; the de- 
scriptions are graphic and vivid ; this book is a general favorite. 

The selections are from Chapters XXX, VII, V and XXX 
respectively. 

MR. WINKLE ON SKATES 

" Now," said Mr. Wardle, after a substantial 
lunch had received ample justice, "what say you 
to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of 
time." 

"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. 

"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer. 

"You skate, of course, Winkle ?" said Wardle. 

" Ye — yes ; " replied Mr. Winkle. "I — I — am 
rather out of practice." 

" Oh, do skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I 
like to see it so much." 

" Oh, it is so graceful," said another young 
lady. 



12 A DICKENS READER 

A third young lady said it was elegant, and a 
fourth expressed the opinion that it was " swan- 
like." 

"I should be very happy, I 'm sure/' said Mr. 
Winkle, reddening ; " but I have no skates." 

This objection was at once overruled. Trundle 
had got a couple of pairs, and the fat boy an- 
nounced that there were half-a-dozen more down- 
stairs, whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite 
delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable. 

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet 
of ice ; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller, having 
shoveled and swept away the snow that had 
fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer 
adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. 
Winkle was perfectly marvelous, and described 
circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight ; 
and inscribed upon the ice, without stopping for 
breath, a great many other pleasant and astonish- 
ing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. 
Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies. 

All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and 
hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a 
gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his 
skates on, with the points behind, and getting 
the straps into a very complicated and entangled 
state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who 
knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. 

At length, however, with the assistance of 
Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 13 

screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was 
raised to his feet. 

"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging 
tone, " off vith you, and show 'em how to do it." 

" Stop, Sam, stop ! " said Mr. Winkle, trembling 
violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with 
the grasp of a drowning man. " How slippery it 
is, Sam!" 

"Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," re- 
plied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir." 

This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore 
reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made 
that instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in 
the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice. 

"These — these — are very awkward skates, 
ain't they, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, stagger- 
ing. 

"I'm afeerd there's a orkard gentleman in 
'em, sir," replied Sam. 

"Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite un- 
conscious that there was anything the matter. 
"Come, the ladies are all anxiety." 

" Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly 
smile. "I'm coming." 

"Just a-going to begin," said Sam, endeavoring 
to disengage himself. "Now, sir, start off." 

"Stop an instant, Sam," gasped Mr. Winkle, 
clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. "I 
find I've got a couple of coats at home that I 
don't want. You may have them, Sam." 



i 4 A DICKENS READER 

" Thank 'ee, sir/' replied Mr. Weller. 

"Never mind touching your hat, Sam/' said 
Mr. Winkle, hastily. "You needn't take your 
hand away to do that. I meant to have given 
you five shillings this morning for a Christmas- 
box, Sam. I '11 give it you this afternoon, Sam." 

" You are wery good, sir," replied Mr. Weller. 

" Just hold me at first, Sam, will you?" said 
Mr. Winkle. " There — that 's right. I shall soon 
get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam, not 
too fast." 

Mr. Winkle, stooping forward, with his body 
half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice 
by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan- 
like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently 
shouted from the opposite bank : 

"Sam!" 

"Sir?" said Mr. Weller. 

"Here. I want you." 

"Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the 
governor a-callin' ? Let go, sir." 

With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged 
himself from the agonized Pickwickian ; and, in 
so doing, administered a considerable impetus 
to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy 
which no degree of dexterity or practice could 
have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore 
swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the 
very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was per- 
forming a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 15 

Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a 
loud crash they both fell heavily down. 

Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer 
had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too 
wise to do anything of the kind in skates. He 
was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts 
to smile; but anguish was depicted on every 
lineament of his countenance. 

"Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin 
Allen, with great anxiety. 

"Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his 
back very hard. 

Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He 
beckoned to Mr. Weller, and said in a stern 
voice, " Take his skates off." 

The command was not to be resisted. Mr. 
Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in silence. 

"Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam as- 
sisted him to rise. Mr. Pickwick retired a few 
paces from the bystanders, and, beckoning his 
friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon 
him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and em- 
phatic tone, these remarkable words: 

"You 're a humbug, sir !" 

"A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting. 

" A humbug, sir. I will speak plainer, if you 
wish it. An imposter, sir." 

With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly 
on his heel, and rejoined his friends. 



1 6 A DICKENS READER 



MR. WINKLE GOES GUNNING 

In less than five minutes after Mr. Pickwick 
had been shown to his comfortable bedroom , he 
fell into a sound and dreamless sleep, from which 
he was awakened only by the morning sun dart- 
ing his bright beams reproachfully into the apart- 
ment. Mr. Pickwick was no sluggard; and he 
sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent — 
bedstead. 

" Pleasant, pleasant country/' sighed the 
enthusiastic gentleman, as he opened the lat- 
tice. ... 

The rich, sweet smell of the hay-ricks rose to 
his chamber window; the hundred perfumes of 
the little flower garden beneath scented the air 
around; the deep-green meadow shone in the 
morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it 
trembled in the gentle air ; and the birds sang 
as if every sparkling drop were a fountain of 
inspiration to them. Mr. Pickwick fell into an 
enchanting and delicious reverie. 

" Hallo ! " was the sound that roused him. 

He looked to the right, but he saw nobody ; 
his eyes wandered to the left, and pierced the 
prospect ; he stared into the sky, but he was n't 
wanted there ; and then he did what a common 
mind would have done at once — looked into the 
garden, and there saw Mr. Wardle. 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 17 

" How are you ? " said that good-humored in- 
dividual, out of breath with his own anticipations 
of pleasure. " Beautiful morning, ain't it ? Glad 
to see you up so early. Make haste down, and 
come out. I '11 wait for you here." 

Mr. Pickwick needed no second invitation. Ten 
minutes sufficed for the completion of his toilet, 
and at the expiration of that time he was by the 
old gentleman's side. 

" Hallo ! " said Mr. Pickwick in his turn, seeing 
that his companion was armed with a gun, and 
that another lay ready on the grass. " What 's 
going forward?" 

" Why, your friend and I are going out rook- 
shooting before breakfast. He 's a very good 
shot, ain't he ? " 

"I've heard him say he's a capital one," re- 
plied Mr. Pickwick, " but I never saw him aim at 
anything." . . . 

" This is the place," said the old gentleman, 
pausing after a few minutes walking, in an ave- 
nue of trees. The information was unnecessary, 
for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks 
sufficiently indicated their whereabout. 

The old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, 
and loaded the other. 

"Here they are," said Mr. Pickwick; and 
as he spoke, the forms of Mr. Tupman, Mr. 
Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle appeared in the dis- 
tance. 



1 8 A DICKENS READER 

" Come along/' shouted the old gentleman, ad- 
dressing Mr. Winkle; "a keen hand like you 
ought to have been up long ago, even to such 
poor work as this." 

Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, 
and took up the spare gun with an expression 
of countenance which a metaphysical rook, im- 
pressed with a foreboding of his approaching 
death by violence, may be supposed to assume. 
It might have been keenness, but it looked re- 
markably like misery. 

The old gentleman nodded ; and two ragged 
boys who had been marshaled to the spot forth- 
with commenced climbing up two of the trees. 

" What are those lads for ? " inquired Mr. Pick- 
wick abruptly. He was rather alarmed, for he 
was not quite certain but that the distress of the 
agricultural interest, about which he had often 
heard a great deal, might have compelled the 
small boys attached to the soil, to earn a precari- 
ous and hazardous subsistence by making marks 
of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen. 

" Only to start the game," replied Mr. Wardle, 
laughing. 

"To what?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

" Why, in plain English, to frighten the rooks." 

"Oh! Is that all?" 

" You are satisfied ? " 

" Quite." 

"Very well. Shall I begin ? " 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 19 

" I£ you please/' said Mr. Winkle, glad of any 
respite. 

" Stand aside, then. Now for it." 

The boy shouted/ and shook a branch with a 
nest on it. Half a dozen young rooks in violent 
conversation flew out to ask what the matter was. 
The old gentleman fired by way of reply. Down 
fell one bird, and off flew the others. 

"Now, Mr. Winkle/' said the host, reloading 
his own gun, "Fire away." 

Mr. Winkle advanced, and leveled his gun. 
Mr. Pickwick and his friends cowered involun- 
tarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of 
rooks which they felt certain would be occasioned 
by the devastating barrel of their friend. There 
was a solemn pause — a shout — a flapping of 
wings — a faint click. 

" Hallo ! " said the old gentleman. 

" Won't it go?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. 

" Missed fire," said Mr. Winkle, who was very 
pale, probably from disappointment. 

" Odd," said the old gentleman, taking the gun. 
" Never knew one of them to miss fire before. 
Why, I don't see anything of the cap." 

" Bless my soul," said Mr. Winkle. " I declare, 
I forgot the cap !" 

The slight omission was rectified. Mr. Pickwick 
crouched again. Mr. Winkle stepped forward 
with an air of determination and resolution ; and 
Mr. Tupman looked out from behind a tree. The 



ao A DICKENS READER 

boy shouted; — four birds flew out. Mr. Winkle 
fired. There was a scream as of an individual — 
not a rook — in corporeal anguish. Mr. Tupman 
had saved the lives of innumerable unoffending 
birds, by receiving a portion of the charge in 
his left arm. 

To describe the confusion that ensued would 
be impossible. To tell how Mr. Pickwick in the 
first transports of his emotion called Mr. Winkle 
" Wretch ! " how Mr. Tupman lay prostrate on 
the ground ; and how Mr. Winkle knelt horror- 
stricken beside him ; how Mr. Tupman called 
distractedly upon some feminine Christian name, 
and then opened first one eye, and then the other, 
and then fell back and shut them both; — all 
this would be as difficult to describe in detail as 
it would be to depict the gradual recovering of 
the unfortunate individual, the binding up of his 
arm with pocket-handkerchiefs, and the convey- 
ing him back by slow degrees supported by the 
arms of his anxious friends. 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS ai 

A PICKWICKIAN EXCURSION l 

"Now, about Manor Farm/' said Mr. Pick- 
wick. " How shall we go ? " 

" We had better consult the waiter, perhaps," 
said Mr. Tupman, and the waiter was summoned 
accordingly. 

" Dingley Dell, gentlemen — fifteen miles, 
gentlemen — cross road — post-chaise, sir ? " 

" Post-chaise won't hold more than two," said 
Mr. Pickwick. 

" True, sir — beg your pardon, sir. — Very 
nice four-wheeled chaise, sir — seat for two be- 
hind — one in front for the gentleman that drives 
— oh, beg your pardon, sir — that '11 only hold 
three." 

" What's to be done?" said Mr. Snodgrass. 

" Perhaps one of the gentlemen would like to 
ride, sir," suggested the waiter, looking towards 
Mr. Winkle. "Very good saddle horses, sir, — 
any of Mr. Wardle's men coming to Rochester, 
bring 'em back, sir." 

" The very thing," said Mr. Pickwick. 
"Winkle, will you go on horseback?" 

Now Mr. Winkle did entertain considerable 
misgivings in the very lowest recesses of his own 
heart, relative to his equestrian skill ; but, as 

1 The members of the Pickwick Club are about to visit 
Mr. Wardle, an old gentleman who lives on his estate in the 
country. 



22 A DICKENS READER 

he would not have them even suspected on any 
account, he replied at once with great hardihood, 
" Certainly. I should enjoy it of all things." 

Mr. Winkle had rushed upon his fate ; there 
was no resource. " Let them be at the door by 
eleven/' said Mr. Pickwick. 

" Very well, sir," replied the waiter. 

The waiter retired ; the breakfast concluded ; 
and the travelers ascended to their respective 
bedrooms, to prepare a change of clothing to 
take with them on their approaching expedition. 

Mr. Pickwick had made his preliminary ar- 
rangements, and was looking over the coffee-room 
blinds at the passengers in the street, when the 
waiter entered, and announced that the chaise was 
ready — an announcement which the vehicle it- 
self confirmed by forthwith appearing before the 
coffee-room blinds aforesaid. 

It was a curious little green box on four 
wheels, with a low place like a wine bin for two 
behind, and an elevated perch for one in front, 
drawn by an immense brown horse, displaying 
great symmetry of bone. A hostler stood near, 
holding by the bridle another immense horse 
— apparently a near relative of the animal in the 
chaise — ready saddled for Mr. Winkle. 

" Bless my soul ! " said Mr. Pickwick, as they 
stood upon the pavement while the coats were 
being put in. " Bless my soul ! who 's to drive ? 
I never thought of that." 




A PICKWICKIAN EXCURSION 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 23 

u Oh ! you, of course/' said Mr. Tupman. 

" Of course/' said Mr. Snodgrass. 

" I ! " exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. 

"Not the slightest fear, sir/' interposed the 
hostler. " Warrant him quiet, sir ; a hinf ant in 
arms might drive him." 

" He don't shy, does he ? " inquired Mr. Pick- 
wick. 

" Shy, sir ? — He would n't shy if he was to 
meet a vaggin-load of monkeys, with their tails 
burnt off." 

The last recommendation was indisputable. 
Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass got into the bin ; 
Mr. Pickwick ascended to his perch, and de- 
posited his feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected 
beneath it for that purpose. 

" Now, shiny Villiam," said the hostler to the 
deputy hostler, " give the gen'lm'n the ribbins." 
" Shiny Villiam " — so called, probably, from his 
sleek hair and oily countenance — placed the 
reins in Mr. Pickwick's left hand; and the upper 
hostler thrust a whip into his right. 

" Wo-o ! " cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quad- 
ruped evinced a decided inclination to back into 
the coffee-room window. 

" Wo-o ! " echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snod- 
grass, from the bin. 

" Only his playfulness, gen'lm'n/' said the 
head hostler, encouragingly : " just kitch hold on 
him, Villiam." The deputy restrained the animal's 



24 A DICKENS READER 

impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. 
Winkle in mounting. 

"T* other side, sir, if you please." 

" Blowed if the gen'lm'n worn't a gettin' up 
on the wrong side ! " whispered a grinning post- 
boy, to the inexpressibly gratified waiter. 

Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his 
saddle, with about as much difficulty as he would 
have experienced in getting up the side of a first- 
rate man-of-war. 

"All right?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an 
inward presentiment that it was all wrong. 

" All right," replied Mr. Winkle faintly. 

" Let 'em go," cried the hostler, — " Hold him 
in, sir ; " and away went the chaise, and the saddle- 
horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of the one, 
and Mr. Winkle on the back of the other, to 
the delight and gratification of the whole inn 
yard. 

"What makes him go sideways?" said Mr. 
Snodgrass in the bin to Mr. Winkle in the saddle. 

" I can't imagine," replied Mr. Winkle. His 
horse was going up the street in the most myste- 
rious manner — side first, with his head towards 
one side of the way, and his tail to the other. 

Mr. Pickwick had no leisure to observe either 
this or any other particular, the whole of his 
faculties being concentrated in the management 
of the animal attached to the chaise, who dis- 
played various peculiarities, highly interesting to 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 25 

a bystander, but by no means equally amusing 
to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly 
jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and 
uncomfortable manner, and tugging at the reins 
to an extent which rendered it a matter of great 
difficulty for Mr. Pickwick to hold them, he had 
a singular propensity for darting suddenly every 
now and then to the side of the road, then stop- 
ping short, and then rushing forward for some 
minutes, at a speed which it was wholly impos- 
sible to control. 

" What can he mean by this?" said Mr. Snod- 
grass, when the horse had executed this man- 
oeuvre for the twentieth time. 

"I don't know," replied Mr. Tupman ; "it 
looks very much like shying, don't it ? " 

Mr. Snodgrass was about to reply, when he 
was interrupted by a shout from Mr. Pickwick. 

" Woo ! " said that gentleman, " I have 
dropped my whip ! " 

" Winkle," cried Mr. Snodgrass, as the eques- 
trian came trotting up on the tall horse, with his 
hat over his eyes, and shaking all over, as if he 
would shake to pieces with the violence of the 
exercise, " pick up the whip, there 's a good fel- 
low." Mr. Winkle pulled at the bridle of the tall 
horse till he was black in the face ; and having 
at length succeeded in stopping him, dismounted, 
handed the whip to Mr. Pickwick, and grasping 
the reins, prepared to remount. 



<i6 A DICKENS READER 

Now whether the tall horse, in the natural 
playfulness of his disposition, was desirous of hav- 
ing a little innocent recreation with Mr. Winkle, 
or whether it occurred to him that he could per- 
form the journey as much to his own satisfaction 
without a rider as with one, are points upon 
which, of course, we can arrive at no definite 
conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was 
actuated, certain it was that Mr. Winkle had no 
sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them 
over his head, and darted backward to their full 
length. 

" Poor fellow," said Mr. Winkle, soothingly, 
— "poor fellow — good old horse." The " poor 
fellow" was proof against flattery : the more Mr. 
Winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he 
sidled away; and notwithstanding all kinds of 
coaxing and wheedling, there were Mr. Winkle 
and the horse going round and round each other 
for ten minutes, at the end of which time each 
was at precisely the same distance from the other 
as when they first commenced — an unsatisfactory 
sort of thing under any circumstances, but partic- 
ularly so in a lonely road, w r here no assistance 
could be procured. 

" What am I to do ? " shouted Mr. Winkle, 
after the dodging had been prolonged for a con- 
siderable time. " What am I to do? I can't get 
on him." 

" You had better lead him till we come to 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 27 

a turnpike/' replied Mr. Pickwick from the 
chaise. 

" But he won't come ! " roared Mr. Winkle. 
" Do come and hold him." 

Mr. Pickwick was the very personification o£ 
kindness and humanity : he threw the reins on 
the horse's back, and having descended from his 
seat, carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, 
lest anything should come along the road, and 
stepped back to the assistance of his distressed 
companion, leaving Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snod- 
grass in the vehicle. 

The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick ad- 
vancing towards him, with the chaise whip in his 
hand, than he exchanged the rotary motion in 
which he had previously indulged, for a retro- 
grade movement of so very determined a charac- 
ter that it at once drew Mr. Winkle, who was 
still at the end of the bridle, at a rather quicker 
rate than fast walking, in the direction from 
which they had just come. 

Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance; but the 
faster Mr. Pickwick ran forward, the faster the 
horse ran backward. There was great scraping of 
feet and kicking up of the dust ; and at last Mr. 
Winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out of their 
sockets, fairly let go his hold. The horse paused, 
stared, shook his head, turned round, and quietly 
trotted home to Rochester, leaving Mr. Winkle 
and Mr. Pickwick gazing on each other with 



28 A DICKENS READER 

countenances of blank dismay. A rattling noise 
at a little distance attracted their attention. 
They looked up. 

" Bless my soul ! " exclaimed the agonized 
Mr. Pickwick, " there 's the other horse running 
away ! " 

It was but too true. The animal was startled 
by the noise, and the reins were on his back. 
The result may be guessed. He tore off with the 
four-wheeled chaise behind him, and Mr. Tup- 
man and Mr. Snodgrass in the four-wheeled 
chaise. 

The heat was a short one. Mr. Tupman threw 
himself into the hedge, Mr. Snodgrass followed 
his example ; the horse dashed the four-wheeled 
chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the 
wheels from the body, and the bin from the 
perch, and finally stood stock-still, to gaze upon 
the ruin he had made. 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 29 

MR. PICKWICK'S SLIDE 

Meanwhile Mr. Weller and the fat boy, hav- 
ing by their joint endeavors, cut out a slide, were 
exercising themselves thereupon in a very mas- 
terly and brilliant manner. . . . 

It was a good long slide, and there was some- 
thing in the motion which Mr. Pickwick, who 
was very cold with standing still, could not help 
envying. 

" It looks a nice warm exercise, does n't it ? " 
he inquired of Wardle. 

" Ah, it does indeed ! " replied Wardle. " Do 
you slide ? " 

" I used to do so on the gutters, when I was a 
boy," replied Mr. Pickwick. 

" Try it now," said Wardle. 

" Oh, do, please, Mr. Pickwick ! " cried all the 
ladies. 

" I should be very happy to afford you any 
amusement/' replied Mr. Pickwick, " but I have n't 
done such a thing these thirty years." 

" Pooh ! pooh ! Nonsense ! " said Wardle, 
dragging off his skates with the impetuosity 
which characterized all his proceedings. " Here ; 
I '11 keep you company ; come along ! " And 
away went the good-tempered old fellow down 
the slide, with a rapidity which came very close 
upon Mr. Weller and beat the fat boy all to 
nothing. 



3 o A DICKENS READER 

Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off 
his gloves and put them in his hat, took two or 
three short runs, balked himself as often, and at 
last took another run, and went slowly and gravely 
down the slide, with his f et about a yard and a 
quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all 
the spectators. 

" Keep the pot a-bilin', sir ! " said Sam : and 
down went Wardle again, and then Mr. Pick- 
wick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and 
then Mr. Bob Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and 
then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely upon each 
other's heels, and running after each other with 
as much eagerness as if all their future prospects 
in life depended on their expedition. 

It was the most intensely interesting thing to 
observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick per- 
formed his share in the ceremony: to watch the 
torture and anxiety with which he viewed the 
person behind gaining upon him at the imminent 
hazard of tripping him up ; to see him gradually 
expend the painful force he had put on at first, 
and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face 
toward the point from which he had started ; to 
contemplate the joyful smile which mantled on 
his face when he had accomplished the distance, 
and the eagerness with which he turned round 
when he had done so and ran after his predeces- 
sor, his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through 
the snow and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and 
gladness through his spectacles. 




MR. PICKWICK'S SLIDE 



THE PICKWICK PAPERS 31 

And when he was knocked down (which hap- 
pened upon the average every third round) it was 
the most invigorating sight that can possibly be 
imagined to see him gather up his hat, gloves, 
and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, 
and resume his station in the rank with an ardor 
and enthusiasm that nothing could abate. 

The sport was at its height, the sliding was at 
the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when 
a sharp, smart crack was heard. There was a 
quick rush toward the bank, a wild scream from the 
ladies, and a shout from Mr. Tupman. A large 
mass of ice disappeared, the water bubbled up 
over it; Mr. Pickwick's hat, gloves and handker- 
chief were floating on the surface; and this was 
all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody could see. 

Dismay and anguish were depicted on every 
countenance, while Mr. Tupman, by way of ren- 
dering the promptest assistance, and at the same 
time conveying to any persons who might be 
within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the 
catastrophe, ran off across the country at his ut- 
most speed, screaming, " Fire ! " with all his might. 

It was at this moment, when Mr. Wardle and 
Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cau- 
tious steps, that a face, head, and shoulders 
emerged from beneath the water and disclosed 
the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick. 

"Keep yourself up for an instant — for only 
one instant ! " bawled Mr. Snodgrass. 



32 A DICKENS READER 

" Yes, do ; let me implore you — for my sake ! " 
roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjura- 
tion was rather unnecessary, the probability being, 
that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep him- 
self up for anybody's sake, it would have occurred 
to him that he might as w r ell do so for his own. 

u Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow ? " 
said Wardle. 

" Yes, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, wring- 
ing the water from his head and face and gasp- 
ing for breath. "I fell upon my back. I couldn't 
get on my feet at first." 

The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat 
as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy 
of this statement ; and as the fears of the specta- 
tors were still further relieved by the fat boy's 
suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere 
more than five feet deep, prodigies of valor were 
performed to get him out. 

After avast quantity of splashing and cracking 
and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly 
extricated from his unpleasant position and once 
more stood on dry land. 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 

In 1840 Mr. Dickens commenced Master Humphrey's Clock 
which afterwards became a part of The Old Curiosity Shop. 

Of all the child characters depicted by Dickens, this of Little 
Nell is most noble, beautiful and affecting. Her devotion to her 
grandfather, her kindness, her gentleness and patience are every- 
where admired. 

The evil effects of gambling are depicted with great force. 
The old grandfather, maddened with the infatuation, seeks by 
every effort to gain money so that his little granddaughter may 
some day be rich. Helpless and pitiful are his hopes and desires; 
yet, through his repeated failures, he is unflinchingly sustained, 
directed and loved by his Little Nell. The death of Little Nell 
is the most pathetic and touching of the author's serious pass- 
ages. 

The tale brings out many adventures ; old churches and church- 
yards, as well as beautiful rural scenes are vividly described. 

The selections are from Chapters I, XII, and LXXI respec- 
tively. 

NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER 

Although I am an old man, night is generally 
my time for walking. In the summer I often leave 
home early in the morning and roam about the 
fields and lanes all day, or even escape for days 
or weeks together ; but, saving in the country, I 
seldom go out until after dark, though Heaven 
be thanked, I love its light, and feel the cheer- 
fulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any 
creature living*. . . . 

One night I had roamed into the city, 1 and was 

1 London, England. 



34 A DICKENS READER 

walking on in my usual way, when I was arrested 
by an enquiry, which seemed to be addressed to 
myself, and in a soft, sweet voice that struck me 
very pleasantly. I turned hastily round and found 
at my elbow a pretty little girl, who begged to be 
directed to a certain street in quite another quar- 
ter of the town. 

" It is a very long way from here/' said I, "my 
child." 

"I know that, sir," she replied, timidly, " for 
I came from there to-night." 

"Alone?" said I, in some surprise. 

" Oh, yes ; I don't mind that ; but I am a little 
frightened now, for I have lost my road." . . . 

"Come," said I, "I'll take you there." 

She put her hand in mine as confidingly as if 
she had known me from her cradle, and we 
trudged away together. ... I observed that 
every now and then she stole a curious look at 
my face as if to make quite sure that I was not 
deceiving her, and that these glances (very sharp 
and keen they w r ere too) seemed to increase her 
confidence at every repetition. 

Though more scantily attired than she might 
have been, she was dressed with perfect neatness, 
and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect. 

" Who has sent you so far by yourself ? " said I. 

" Somebody who is very kind to me, sir." 

"And what have you been doing?" 

"That I must not tell," said the child, firmly. 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 35 

There was something in the manner of this re- 
ply which caused me to look at the little creature 
with an involuntary expression of surprise ; for I 
wondered what kind of errand it might be that 
occasioned her to be prepared for questioning. 
Her quick eye seemed to read my thoughts, for 
as it met mine she added that there was no harm 
in what she had been doing, but it was a great 
secret — - a secret which she did not even know 
herself. 

This was said with no appearance of cunning 
or deceit, but with an unsuspicious frankness 
that bore the impress of truth. She walked on as 
before, growing more familiar with me as we pro- 
ceeded and talking cheerfully by the way; but 
she said no more about her home, beyond remark- 
ing that we were going quite a new road and ask- 
ing if it were a short one. 

While we were thus engaged, I revolved in my 
mind a hundred different explanations of the 
riddle and rejected them every one. I really felt 
ashamed to take advantage of the ingenuousness 
or grateful feeling of the child for the purpose 
of gratifying my curiosity. 

There was no reason, however, why I should 
refrain from seeing the person who had inconsid- 
erately sent her to so great a distance by night 
and alone, and, as it was not improbable that if 
she found herself near home she might take fare- 
well of me and deprive me of the opportunity, I 



3 6 A DICKENS READER 

avoided the most frequented ways and took the 
most intricate ; and thus it was not until we ar- 
rived in the street itself that she knew where we 
were. 

Clapping her hands with pleasure and running 
on before me a short distance, my little acquaint- 
ance stopped at a door, and remaining on the 
step till I came up, knocked at it when I joined 
her. 

A part of this door was of glass unprotected by 
any shutter. When she had knocked twice or 
thrice there was a noise as if some person were 
moving inside, and at length a faint light 
appeared through the glass which, as it approached 
very slowly, — the bearer having to make his 
way through a great many scattered articles, — 
enabled me to see, both what kind of person it 
was who advanced, and what kind of place it 
was through which he came. 

He was a little old man with long gray hair, 
whose face and figure as he held the light above 
his head and looked before him as he approached, 
I could plainly see. Though much altered by age, 
I fancied I could recognize in his spare and slen- 
der form something of the delicate mould which 
I had observed in the child. Their bright blue 
eyes were certainly alike, but his face was so 
deeply furrowed and so very full of care, that here 
all resemblance ceased. 

The place through which he made his way at 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 37 

leisure was one of those receptacles for old and 
curious things which seem to crouch in odd cor- 
ners of the town, and to hide their musty treasures 
from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. . . . 
The haggard aspect of the little old man was 
wonderfully suited to the place ; he might have 
groped among old churches and tombs and de- 
serted houses and gathered all the spoils with 
his own hands. There was nothing in the whole 
collection but was in keeping with himself; no- 
thing that looked older or more worn than he. 

As he turned the key in the lock, he surveyed 
me with some astonishment, which was not di- 
minished when he looked from me to my com- 
panion. The door being opened, the child ad- 
dressed him as grandfather, and told him the 
little story of our companionship. 

" Why, bless thee, child," said the old man, pat- 
ting her on the head, " how could'st thou miss thy 
way? What if I had lost thee, Nell?" 

"I would have found my way back to you, 
grandfather," said the child boldly ; " never 
fear." 

The old man kissed her, and then turned to 
me and begged me to walk in. I did so. The 
door was closed and locked. Preceding me with 
the light, he led me through the place I had al- 
ready seen from without, into a small sitting room 
behind, in which there was another door opening 
into a kind of closet, where I saw a little bed that 



3 8 A DICKENS READER 

a fairy might have slept in, it looked so very small 
and was so prettily arranged. 

The child took a candle and tripped into this 
little room, leaving the old man and me together. 

"You must be tired, sir," said he, as he placed 
a chair near the fire; "how can I thank you?" 

"By taking more care of your grandchild an- 
other time, my good friend," I replied. 

" More care ! " said the old man in a shrill voice, 
"more care of Nelly! Why, who ever loved a 
child as I love Nell?" 

He said this with such evident surprise that I 
was perplexed what answer to make. . . . 

"I don't think you consider — " I began. 

"I don't consider!" cried the old man inter- 
rupting me, " I don't consider her ! Ah, how lit- 
tle you know of the truth ! Little Nelly ! Little 
Nelly ! " 

It would be impossible for any man, I care not 
what his form of speech might be, to express more 
affection than the dealer in curiosities did, in those 
four words. I waited for him to speak again, but 
he rested his chin upon his hand and, shaking 
his head twice or thrice, fixed his eyes upon the 
fire. . . . 

" Ah ! " said the old man at length, turning to 
me with a sigh, as if I had spoken to him but 
that moment, "you don't know what you say 
when you tell me that I don't consider her." 

" You must not attach too great weight to a re- 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 39 

mark founded upon first appearances, my friend/' 
said I. 

" No/' returned the old man thoughtfully, 
" no. Come hither, Nell." 

The little girl hastened from her seat, and put 
her arm about his neck. 

" Do I love thee, Nell? " said he. " Say — do I 
love thee, Nell, or no? " 

The child only answered by her caresses, and 
laid her head upon his breast. 

" Why dost thou sob," said the grandfather, 
pressing her close to him and glancing towards 
me. "Is it because thou know'st I love thee, and 
dost not like that I should seem to doubt it by 
my question? Well, well — then let us say I love 
thee dearly." 

"Indeed, indeed you do," replied the child 
with great earnestness. . . . 

" She is poor now," said the old man, patting 
the child's cheek, " but I say again that the time 
is coming when she shall be rich. It has been a 
long time coming, but it must come at last; a 
very long time, but it must surely come. It has 
come to other men who do nothing but waste and 
riot. When will it come to me ! " 

"I am very happy as I am, grandfather," said 
the child. 

"Tush, tush !" returned the old man, "thou 
dost not know — how should'st thou ! " Then he 
muttered again between his teeth, " The time 



4 o A DICKENS READER 

must come, I am very sure it must. It will be all 
the better for coming late." And then he sighed 
and fell into his former musing state, and, still 
holding the child between his knees, appeared 
to be insensible to everything around him. 

By this time it wanted but a few minutes of 
midnight and I rose to go, which recalled him to 
himself. . . . He said, " I have n't seemed to thank 
you enough for what you have done to-night, 
but I do thank you humbly and heartily; and so 
does she, and her thanks are better worth than 
mine. I should be sorry that you went away and 
thought I was unmindful of your goodness, or 
careless of her — I am not indeed." . . . 

I turned to put on an outer coat which I had 
thrown off on entering the room, purposing to 
say no more. I was surprised to see the child 
standing patiently by with a cloak upon her arm, 
and in her hand a hat and stick. 

" Those are not mine, my dear," said I. 

" No," returned the child quietly, " they are 
grandfather's." 

"But he is not going out to-night." 

" Oh yes, he is," said the child, with a smile. 

"And what becomes of you, my pretty 
one?" 

" Me ? I stay here, of course. I always do." 

I looked in astonishment towards the old man, 
but he was, or feigned to be, busied in the ar- 
rangement of his dress. From him I looked back 




NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 41 

to the slight gentle figure of the child. Alone ! 
In that gloomy place all the long, dreary night ! 

She evinced no consciousness of my surprise, 
but cheerfully helped the old man with his cloak, 
and, when he was ready, took a candle to light 
us out. 

When we reached the door, the child, setting 
down the candle, turned to say good-night and 
raised her face to kiss me. Then she ran to the 
old man, who folded her in his arms and bade 
God bless her. 

" Sleep soundly, Nell," he said in a low voice, 
" and angels guard thy bed ! Do not forget thy 
prayers, my sweet." 

" No indeed," answered the child fervently, 
" they make me feel so happy." 

With this, they separated. The child opened 
the door and with another farewell, whose clear 
and tender note I have recalled a thousand times, 
held it until we had passed out. The old man 
paused a moment while it was gently closed and 
fastened on the inside, and, satisfied that this 
was done, walked on at a slow pace. 

At the street corner he stopped, and, regard- 
ing me with a troubled countenance, said that 
our ways were widely different and that he must 
take his leave. I would have spoken, but sum- 
moning up more alacrity than might have been 
expected in one of his appearance, he hurried 
away. 



42 A DICKENS READER 



NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER DESERT 
THE TOWN 

The child's heart beat high with hope and con- 
fidence. She had no thought o£ hunger, or cold, 
or thirst, or suffering. She saw in this but a re- 
turn of the simple pleasures they had once enjoyed, 
a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she 
had lived, an escape from the heartless people by 
whom she had been surrounded in her late time 
of trial, the restoration of the old man's health 
and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. Sun, 
and stream, and meadow, and summer days, shone 
brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint 
in all the sparkling picture. 

The old man had slept for some hours soundly 
in his bed, and she was busily engaged preparing 
for their flight. There were a few articles of 
clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him ; 
old garments, such as became their fallen for- 
tunes, laid out to wear ; and a staff to support 
his feeble steps, put ready for his use. But this 
was not all her task, for she must now revisit the 
old rooms for the last time. 

And how different the parting with them w r as 
from any she had expected, and most of all from 
that which she had often pictured to herself ! How 
could she ever have thought of bidding them 
farewell in triumph, when the recollection of the 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 43 

many hours she had passed among them rose to 
her swelling heart, and made her feel the wish a 
cruelty : lonely and sad though many of those 
hours had been ! She sat down at the window 
where she had spent so many evenings — darker 
far than this — and every thought of hope and 
cheerfulness that had occurred to her in that 
place came vividly upon her mind, and blotted 
out all its dull and mournful associations in an 
instant. 

Her own little room too, where she had so 
often knelt down and prayed at night, prayed 
for the time which she hoped was dawning now; 
the little room where she had slept so peacefully 
and dreamed such pleasant dreams ; it was hard 
not to be able to glance round it once more, and 
to be forced to leave it without one kind look or 
grateful tear. There were some trifles there, — 
poor, useless things, — that she would have liked 
to take away ; but this was impossible. 

This brought to her mind her bird, her poor 
bird, who hung there yet. She wept bitterly 
for the loss of this little creature, until the idea 
occurred to her — she did not know how or 
why it came into her head — that it might 
bv some means fall into the hands of Kit, 1 
who would keep it for her sake, and think per- 
haps that she had left it behind in the hope that 
he might have it, and as an assurance that she 

1 An errand boy who had been employed by the grandfather. 



44 A DICKENS READER 

was grateful to him. She was calmed and com- 
forted by the thought, and went to rest with a 
lighter heart. 

From many dreams of rambling through light 
and sunny places, but with some vague object 
unattained which ran indistinctly through them 
all, she awoke to find that it was yet night, and 
that the stars were shining brightly in the sky. 
At length the day began to glimmer, and the 
stars to grow pale and dim. As soon as she was 
sure of this, she arose and dressed herself for the 
journey. 

The old man was yet asleep, and as she was 
unwilling to disturb him, she left him to slumber 
until the sun rose. He was anxious that they 
should leave the house without a minute's loss of 
time, and was soon ready. 

The child took him by the hand and they trod 
lightly and cautiously down the stairs, trembling 
whenever a board creaked, and often stopping to 
listen. The old man had forgotten a kind of wal- 
let which contained the light burden he had to 
carry, and the going back a few steps to fetch it 
seemed an interminable delay. 

At last they reached the passage on the ground- 
floor. . . . They got the door open without 
noise, and passing into the street, stood still. 

" Which way ?" said the child. 

The old man looked irresolutely and helplessly, 
first at her, then to the right and left, then at her 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 45 

again, and shook his head. It was plain that she 
was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child 
felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and put- 
ting her hand in his, gently led him away. 

It was the beginning of a day in June ; the 
deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming 
with brilliant light. The streets were as yet nearly 
free from passengers, the houses and shops were 
closed, and the healthful air of morning fell, like 
breath from angels, on the sleeping town. 

The old man and the child passed on through 
the glad silence, elate with hope and pleasure. 
They were alone together once again ; every object 
was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, 
otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and 
constraint they had left behind; church towers 
and steeples, frowning and dark at other times, 
now shone and dazzled in the sun ; each humble 
nook and corner rejoiced in light ; and the sky, 
dimmed by excessive distance, shed its placid 
smile on everything beneath. 

Forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, 
went the two poor adventurers, wandering they 
knew not whither. 



46 A DICKENS READER 



THE DEATH OF LITTLE NELL 

She was dead. There, upon her little bed, she 
lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel 
now. 

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, 
so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. 
She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of 
God, and waiting for the breath of life ; not one 
who had lived and suffered death. 

Her couch was dressed with here and there 
some winter berries and green leaves, gathered 
in a spot she had been used to favor. " When I 
die, put something near me that loved the light, 
and had the sky above it always." Those were 
her words. 

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell 
was dead. Her little bird — a poor slight thing 
the pressure of a finger would have crushed — 
was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong 
heart of its child-mistress was mute and motion- 
less forever. 

Where were the traces of her early cares, her 
sufferings, and fatigues ? All gone. Sorrow was 
dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happi- 
ness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty 
and profound repose. 

And still her former self lay there, unaltered 
in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled 



THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 47 

upon that same sweet face ; it had passed like a 
dream through haunts of misery and care ; at 
the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer 
evening, before the furnace-fire upon the cold 
wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, 
there had been the same mild lovely look. So 
shall we know the angels in their majesty, after 
death. 

The old man held one languid arm in his, and 
had the small hand tightly folded to his breast, 
for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched 
out to him with her last smile — the hand that had 
led him on through all their wanderings. Ever 
and anon he pressed it to his lips ; then hugged 
it to his breast again, murmuring that it was 
warmer now ; and as he said it he looked, in agony, 
to those who stood around, as if imploring them 
to help her. 

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. 
The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with 
life, even while her own was waning fast — the 
garden she had tended — the eyes she had glad- 
dened — the noiseless haunts of many a thought- 
ful hour — the paths she had trodden as it were 
but yesterday — could know her no more. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. It was the first 
and considered the best of a series of Christmas stories. By these 
Christmas stories of peace, good-will, forgiveness and generosity, 
it is said " he softened the hearts of a whole generation." He 
awakened pity in the hearts of millions of people by these books 
which had a wide influence. His stories of Christmas led many 
a hard-hearted person to keep Christmas with acts of charity 
and helpfulness to the poor. 

Mr. Dickens said of this work, " My purpose was, in a whim- 
sical kind of mask, which the good humor of the season justified, 
to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of 
season, in a Christian land." 

Thackeray wrote of the Christmas Carol, "It seems to me a na- 
tional benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a per- 
sonal kindness." 

Kate Field said of it : " Hungry ears have listened to no 
better hymn of praise ; hungry eyes have feasted on no truer or 
more loving counsel." 

The selections are from Staves One, Two, and Three, respec- 
tively. 

SCROOGE 



Marley was dead to begin with. There is no 
doubt whatever about that. The register of his 
burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, 
the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge 
signed it ; and Scrooge's name was good upon 
'Change for anything he chose to put his hand 
to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 49 

Mind ! I don't mean to say that I know, of 
my own knowledge, what there is particularly 
dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, 
myself, to regard a coffin-nail as about the dead- 
est piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the 
wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my 
unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the 
Country's done for. You will therefore permit 
me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as 
dead as a door-nail. \ 

Scrooge knew he was dead ? Of course he did. 
How could it be otherwise ? Scrooge and he 
were partners for I don't know how many years. 
Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole adminis- 
trator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, 
his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even 
Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad 
event, but that he was an excellent man of busi- 
ness on the very day of the funeral, and solemn- 
ized it with an undoubted bargain. 

The mention of Marley 's funeral brings me back 
to the point I started from. There is no doubt 
that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly 
understood, or nothing wonderful can come of 
the story I am going to relate. If we were not 
perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died 
before the play began, there would be nothing 
more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, 
in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than 
there would be in any other middle-aged gentle- 



5 o A DICKENS READER 

man rashly turning out after dark in a breezy 
spot — say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance 
— literally to astonish his son's weak mind. 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. 
There it stood, years afterwards, above the ware- 
house door : Scrooge and Marley. The firm was 
known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes peo- 
ple new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, 
and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both 
names : it was all the same to him. 

Oh ! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the 
grindstone, Scrooge ! a squeezing, wrenching, 
grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner ! 
Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel 
ever struck out generous fire ; secret, and self- 
contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold 
within him froze his old features, nipped his 
pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his 
gait ; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and 
spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty 
rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and 
his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature 
always about with him ; he iced his office in the 
dog-days, and did n't thaw it one degree at 
Christmas. 

External heat and cold had little influence on 
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry 
weather chill him. No wind that blew was bit- 
terer than he, no falling snow more intent upon 
its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 51 

Foul weather did n't know where to have him. 
The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet 
could boast of the advantage over him in only 
one respect. They often "came down" hand- 
somely, and Scrooge never did. 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, 
with gladsome looks, " My dear Scrooge, how are 
you ? When will you come to see me ? " No beg- 
gars implored him to bestow a trifle ; no children 
asked him what it was o'clock; no man or wo- 
man ever once in all his life inquired the way to 
such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the 
blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and 
when they saw him coming on, would tug their 
owners into doorways and up courts, and then 
would wag their tails as though they said, " No 
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master ! " 

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very 
thing he liked. To edge his way along the 
crowded paths of life, warning all human sym- 
pathy to keep its distance was what the knowing 
ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. 

11 

Once upon a time — of all the good days in 
the year, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat 
busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, 
biting weather, foggy withal, and he could hear 
the people in the court outside go wheezing 
up and down, beating their hands upon their 



52 A DICKENS READER 

breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pave- 
ment stones to keep them warm. 

The city clocks had only just gone three, but 
it was quite dark already ; it had not been light 
all day ; and candles were flaring in the win- 
dows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears 
upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pour- 
ing in at every chink and keyhole, and was so 
dense without, that although the court was of 
the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere 
phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come droop- 
ing down, obscuring everything, one might have 
thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brew- 
ing on a large scale. 

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was 
open that he might keep an eye upon his clerk, 
who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of 
tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very 
small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much 
smaller that it looked like one coal. But he 
could n't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal- 
box in his own room, and so surely as the clerk 
came in with the shovel, the master predicted 
that it would be necessary for them to part. 
Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, 
and tried to warm himself at the candle; in 
which effort, not being a man of strong imagin- 
ation, he failed. 

" A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you ! " 
cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL $3 

Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly 
that this was the first intimation of his approach. 

" Rah ! " said Scrooge. " Humbug ! " 

He had so heated himself with walking, this 
nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; 
his face was ruddy and handsome ; his eyes spark- 
led, and his breath smoked again. 

" Christmas a humbug, uncle ! " said Scrooge's 
nephew. " You don't mean that, I am sure." 

" I do," said Scrooge. " Merry Christmas ! 
What right have you to be merry? What reason 
have you to be merry? You're poor enough." 

"Come, then," returned the nephew, gaily. 
" What right have you to be dismal ? What 
reason have you to be morose? You're rich 
enough." 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the 
spur of the moment, said " Rah ! " again ; and 
followed it up with " Humbug ! " 

" Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephew. 

" What else can I be," returned the uncle, 
"when I live in such a world of fools as this? 
Merry Christmas ! Out upon merry Christmas ! 
What 's Christmas time to you but a time for pay- 
ing bills without money ; a time for finding 
yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a 
time for balancing your books and having every 
item in 'em through a round dozen of months 
presented dead against you ? If I could work my 
will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who 



54 A DICKENS READER 

goes about with ' Merry Christmas' on his lips 
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried 
with a stake of holly through his heart. He 
should ! " 

" Uncle ! " pleaded the nephew. 

" Nephew ! " returned the uncle, sternly, " keep 
Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it 
in mine." 

" Keep it ! " repeated Scrooge's nephew. " But 
you don't keep it." 

" Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. 
" Much good may it do you ! Much good it has 
ever done you ! " 

" There are many things from which I might 
have derived good, by which I have not profited, 
I dare say," returned the nephew, " Christmas 
among the rest. But I am sure I have always 
thought of Christmas time, when it has come 
round — apart from the veneration due to its 
sacred name and origin, if anything belonging 
to it can be apart from that — as a good time ; 
a kind, forgiving, charitable time ; the only time 
I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when 
men and women seem by one consent to open 
their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of peo- 
ple below them as if they were really fellow-pas- 
sengers to the grave, and not another race of 
creatures bound on other journeys. And there- 
fore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of 
gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 55 

done me good, and will do me good ; and I say, 
God bless it ! " 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. 
Becoming immediately sensible of the impro- 
priety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the 
last frail spark forever. 

" Let me hear another sound from you" said 
Scrooge, " and you '11 keep your Christmas by 
losing your situation ! You 're quite a powerful 
speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. 
" I wonder you don't go into Parliament." 

" Don't be angry, uncle. Come ! Dine with us 
to-morrow." 

Scrooge said that he would see him — yes, in- 
deed he did. He went the whole length of the 
expression, and said that he would see him in 
that extremity first. 

" But why ? " cried Scrooge's nephew. " Why ? " 

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge. 

" Because I fell in love." 

" Because you fell in love ! " growled Scrooge, 
as if that were the only one thing in the world 
more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. " Good- 
afternoon ! " 

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me 
before that happened. Why give it as a reason 
for not coming now? " 

"Good-afternoon!" said Scrooge. "I want 
nothing from you ; I ask nothing of you ; why 
cannot we be friends? " 



56 A DICKENS READER 

" Good-afternoon/' said Scrooge. 

" I am sorry, with all my heart to find you so 
resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which 
I have been a party. But I have made the trial 
in homage to Christmas, and I '11 keep my Christ- 
mas humor to the last. So A Merry Christmas, 
uncle ! " 

" Good-afternoon ! " said Scrooge. 

" And a Happy New Year ! " 

" Good-afternoon ! " said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry 
word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer 
door to bestow the greetings of the season on 
the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than 
Scrooge, for he returned them cordially. 

" There 's another fellow," muttered Scrooge, 
who overheard him, " my clerk, with fifteen shil- 
lings a week, and a wife and family, talking 
about a merry Christmas. I '11 retire to Bedlam." 

in 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, 
had let in two other people. They were portly 
gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, 
with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had 
books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. 

" Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of 
the gentlemen, referring to his list. " Have I the 
pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. 
Marley?" 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 57 

" Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years/' 
Scrooge replied. " He died seven years ago this 
very night." 

" We have no doubt his liberality is well rep- 
resented by his surviving partner/' said the gentle- 
man, presenting his credentials. 

It certainly was, for they had been two kindred 
spirits. At the ominous word " liberality " Scrooge 
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the 
credentials back. 

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. 
Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 
" it is more than usually desirable that we should 
make some slight provision for the poor and des- 
titute, who suffer greatly at the present time. 
Many thousands are in want of common neces- 
saries ; hundreds of thousands are in want of 
common comforts, sir." 

" Are there no prisons ? " asked Scrooge. 

" Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying 
down the pen again. 

" And the Union workhouses ? " demanded 
Scrooge, "are they still in operation?" 

" They are. Still," returned the gentleman, " I 
wish I could say they were not." 

" The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full 
vigor, then ? " said Scrooge. 

" Both very busy, sir." 

" Oh ! I was afraid, from what you said at 
first, that something had occurred to stop them 



5 8 A DICKENS READER 

in their useful course/' said Scrooge. " I 'm very 
glad to hear it." 

" Under the impression that they scarcely fur- 
nish Christian cheer of mind or body to the mul- 
titude/' returned the gentleman, " a few of us are 
endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some 
meat and drink, and means of warmth. We 
choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, 
when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance re- 
joices. What shall I put you down for ? " 

" Nothing ! " Scrooge replied. 

" You wish to be anonymous ? " 

" I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. " Since 
you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my 
answer. I don't make merry myself at Christ- 
mas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. 
I help to support the establishments I have men- 
tioned ; they cost me enough ; and those who are 
badly off must go there." 

" Many can't go there ; and many would rather 
die." 

" If they would rather die," said Scrooge, " they 
had better do it, and decrease the surplus pop- 
ulation. Besides — excuse me — I don't know 
that." 

" But you might know it," observed the gentle- 
man. 

" It 's not my business," Scrooge returned. 
"It's enough for a man to understand his own 
business, and not to interfere with other people's. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 59 

Mine occupies me constantly. Good-afternoon, 
gentlemen ! " 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pur- 
sue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge 
resumed his labors with an improved opinion of 
himself, and in a more facetious temper than was 
usual with him. 



6o A DICKENS READER 



FEZZIWIG'S BALL 1 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse 
door and asked Scrooge if he knew it. 

" Know it ! " said Scrooge. " Was n't I appren- 
ticed here ? " 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman 
in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk 
that if he had been two inches taller he must 
have knocked his head againt the ceiling, Scrooge 
cried in great excitement : — 

" Why, it's old Fezziwig ! Bless his heart; it's 
Fezziwig alive again ! " 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up 
at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. 
He rubbed his hands, adjusted his capacious 
waistcoat, laughed all over himself, from his shoes 
to his organ of benevolence, and called out in 
a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice : 

" Yo ho, there ! Ebenezer ! Dick ! " 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, 
came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow- 
'prentice. 

" Dick Wilkins, to be sure ! " said Scrooge to 
the Ghost. " Bless me, yes. There he is. He 
was very much attached to me, was Dick. 
Poor Dick ! Dear, dear !" 

1 The Ghost of Christmas Past is showing to Scrooge various 
scenes with which he had been familiar in his youth. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 61 

"Yo ho, my boys/' said Fezziwig. "No more 
work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, 
Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up/' cried old 
Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, " before 
a man can say Jack Robinson ! " 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows 
went at it ! They charged into the street with 
those shutters — one, two, three — had 'em up 
in their places — four, five, six — barred and 
pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and came 
back before you could have got to twelve, pant- 
ing like race-horses. 

" Hilli-ho ! " cried old Fezziwig, skipping down 
from the high desk, with wonderful agility. 
" Clear away, my lads, and let 's have lots of room 
here ! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer ! " 

Clear away ! There was nothing they would n't 
have cleared away, or could n't have cleared 
away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done 
in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if 
it were dismissed from public life forevermore ; 
the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were 
trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire ; and the 
warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and 
bright a ballroom as you would desire to see on 
a winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went 
up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of 
it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came 
Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In 



62 A DICKENS READER 

came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lov- 
able. In came the six young followers whose 
hearts they broke. In came all the young men 
and women employed in the business. 

In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the 
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's 
particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy 
from over the way, who was suspected of not 
having board enough from his master, trying to 
hide himself behind the girl from the next door 
but one, who was proved to have had her ears 
pulled by her mistress. 

In they all came, one after another; some 
shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awk- 
wardly, some pushing, some pulling ; in they 
all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all 
went, twenty couples at once; hands half round 
and back again the other way ; down the middle 
and up again ; round and round in various stages 
of affectionate grouping; old top couple always 
turning up in the wrong place ; new top couple 
starting off again as soon as they got there ; all 
top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help 
them! 

When this result was brought about, old Fez- 
ziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried 
out, " Well done !" and the fiddler plunged his 
hot face into, a pot of porter especially provided 
for that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reap- 
pearance, he instantly began again, though there 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 63 

were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had 
been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter ; and 
he were a brand-new man resolved to beat him 
out of sight, or perish. 

There were more dances, and there were for- 
feits, and more dances, and there was cake, and 
there was negus, 1 and there was a great piece of 
Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold 
Boiled, and there were mince pies, and plenty of 
beer. 

But the great effect of the evening came after 
the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler struck 
up " Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig 
stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top 
couple, too ; with a good stiff piece of work cut 
out for them j three or four and twenty pairs of 
partners ; people who were not to be trifled with, 
people who would dance, and had no notion of 
walking. 

But if they had been twice as many — ah, four 
times — old Fezziwig would have been a match 
for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, 
she was worthy to be his partner in every sense 
of the term. If that 's not high praise, tell me 
higher, and I '11 use it. 

A positive light appeared to issue from Fezzi- 
wig' s calves. They shone in every part of the 
dance like moons. You could n't have predicted, 

1 Negus: a sort of beverage like lemonade with wine and 
spices in it. 



64 A DICKENS READER 

at any given time, what would become of them 
next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezzi- 
wig had gone all through the dance ; advance 
and retire, both hands to your partner, bow 
and courtesy, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and 
back again to your place; then Fezziwig " cut " * 
— cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with 
his legs, and came upon his feet again without 
a stagger. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic 
ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their 
stations, one on either side the door, and shaking 
hands with every person individually as he or she 
went out, wished him or her a Merry Christ- 
mas. When everybody had retired but the two 
'prentices, they did the same to them ; and thus 
the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were 
left to their beds, which were under a counter 
in the back shop. 

1 Cut : a dance involving quick, intricate steps. 




tg&»*sf- , 



FEZZIWIG'S BALL 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 65 



CHRISTMAS DINNER AT BOB CRATCHIT'S 1 

Perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit 
had in showing off his power, or else it was his 
own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sym- 
pathy with all poor men, that led him straight to 
Scrooge's clerk ; for there he went, and took 
Scrooge with him, holding to his robe. And on 
the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and 
stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the 
sprinklings of his torch. . . . The Ghost of 
Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house ! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, 
dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, 
but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a 
goodly show for sixpence ; and she laid the cloth, 
assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daugh- 
ters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter 
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of po- 
tatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous 
shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred 
Upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into 
his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly 
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the 
fashionable Parks. 

And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, 
came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's 

1 The Ghost of Christmas Present conducts Scrooge to visit 
the home of his clerk on Christmas Day. 



66 A DICKENS READER 

they had smelt the goose, and known it for their 
own ; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage 
and onion, these young Cratchits danced about 
the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to 
the skies, while ho (not proud, although his 
collar nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the 
slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the 
saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled. 

"What has ever got your precious father 
then ? " said Mrs. Cratchit. " And your brother, 
Tiny Tim ! And Martha warn't as late last Christ- 
mas Day by half-an-hour ! " 

" Here 's Martha, mother ! " said a girl, appear- 
ing as she spoke. 

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two 
young Cratchits. " Hurrah ! There 's such a 
goose, Martha ! " 

" Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how 
late you are! " said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a 
dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet 
for her with officious zeal. 

" We 'd a deal of work to finish up last night," 
replied the girl, " and had to clear away this morn- 
ing, mother ! " 

" Well ! never mind so long as you are come," 
said Mrs. Cratchit. " Sit ye down before the fire, 
my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye ! " 

" No, no ! There 's father coming," cried the 
two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at 
once. " Hide, Martha, hide ! " 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 67 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, 
the father, with at least three feet of comforter 
exclusive of the fringe hanging down before 
him ; and his threadbare clothes darned up and 
brushed, to look seasonable ; and Tiny Tim upon 
his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little 
crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron 
frame ! 

" Why, where 's our Martha ? " cried Bob Crat- 
chit, looking round. 

" Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

" Not coming ! " said Bob, with a sudden de- 
clension in his high spirits; for he had been 
Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and 
had come home rampant. " Not coming upon 
Christmas day ! " 

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if 
it were only in joke ; so she came out prematurely 
from behind the closet door, and ran into his 
arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny 
Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he 
might hear the pudding singing in the copper. 

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. 
Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his cre- 
dulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his 
heart's content. 

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. 
Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so 
much, and thinks the strangest things you ever 
heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped 



68 A DICKENS READER 

the people saw him in the church, because he 
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant for them 
to remember upon Christmas Bay, who made 
lame beggars walk and blind men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them 
this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny 
Tim was growing strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the 
floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another 
word was spoken, escorted by his brother and 
sister to his stool before the fire ; . . . while Mas- 
ter Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratch- 
its went to fetch the goose, with which they soon 
returned in high procession. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have 
thought a goose the rarest of all birds ; a feath- 
ered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a 
matter of course — and in truth it was some- 
thing very like it in that house. 

Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready before- 
hand in a little saucepan) hissing hot ; Master 
Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor ; 
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple -sauce; 
Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny 
Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the 
two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, 
not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard 
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their 
mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before 
their turn came to be helped. 




BOB CRATCHIT AND TINY TIM 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 69 

At last the dishes were set on, and grace was 
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as 
Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carv- 
ing-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast ; but 
when she did, and when the long-expected gush 
of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight 
arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, 
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the 
table with the handle of his knife, and feebly 
cried Hurrah ! 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he 
didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. 
Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, 
were the themes of universal admiration. Eked 
out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was 
a sufficient dinner for the whole family ; in- 
deed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight 
(surveying one small atom of a bone upon the 
dish), they had n't ate it all at last ! Yet every 
one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits 
in particular were steeped in sage and onion to 
the eyebrows ! 

But now, the plates being changed by Miss 
Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too 
nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding 
up and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done 
enough ! Suppose it should break in turning out ! 
Suppose somebody should have got over the wall 
of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were 
merry with the goose — a supposition at which 



70 A DICKENS READER 

the two young Cratchits became livid ! All sorts 
of horrors were supposed. 

Hallo ! A great deal of steam ! The pudding 
was out of the copper. A smell like a washing- 
day ! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating- 
house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, 
with a laundress's next door to that ! That was 
the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit en- 
tered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the 
pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard 
and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ig- 
nited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly 
stuck into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, 
and calmly too, that he regarded it as the great- 
est success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their 
marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the 
weight was off her mind, she would confess 
she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. 
Everybody had something to say about it, but 
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pud- 
ding for a large family. It would have been flat 
heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed 
to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was 
cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. 
The compound in the jug being tasted, and con- 
sidered perfect, apples and oranges were put 
upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on 
the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 71 

the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, 
meaning half a one ; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow 
stood the family display of glass. . . . Two tum- 
blers and a custard-cup without a handle. . . . 

Then Bob proposed: 

" A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God 
bless us!" 

Which all the family re-echoed. 

" God bless us every one ! " said Tiny Tim, the 
last of all. 



AMERICAN NOTES 

American Notes was published in 1842. This book was the 
literary result of Dickens's first visit to the United States. His 
observations upon the newly-visited country, and the people 
whom he had met, with other personages seen and heard about, 
are portrayed with friendliness and an exaggerated drollery. 
Dickens saw the crude and ludicrous in the characters he met 
as well as the situations he experienced. Many of the faults of 
the people in the United States were emphasized. 

The selections are from Chapters I, II and XIV respectively. 



THE HOUR OF SAILING 

We are made fast alongside the packet, whose 
huge red funnel is smoking bravely, giving rich 
promise of serious intentions. Packing-cases, port- 
manteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes are already 
passed from hand to hand and hauled on board 
with breathless rapidity. The officers, smartly 
dressed, are at the gangway handing the passen- 
gers up the side, and hurrying the men. 

In five minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly 
deserted, and the packet is beset and over-run 
by its late freight, who instantly pervade the 
whole ship, and are to be met with by dozens in 
every nook and corner, swarming down below 
with their own baggage and stumbling over other 
people's ; disposing themselves comfortably in 
wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible con- 



AMERICAN NOTES 73 

fusion by having to turn out again ; madly bent 
upon opening locked doors, and on forcing a 
passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places 
where there is no thoroughfare ; sending wild 
stewards, with elfin hair, to and fro upon the 
breezy decks on unintelligible errands, impossible 
of execution ; and, in short, creating the most 
extraordinary and bewildering tumult. . . . 

What have we here ? The captain's boat ! 
and yonder the captain himself. Now, by all our 
hopes and wishes, the very man he ought to be ! 
A well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow, 
with a ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation 
to shake him by both hands at once, and with 
a clear, blue, honest eye that it does one good to 
see one's sparkling image in. 

" Ring the bell ! " " Ding, ding, ding ! " the very 
bell is in a hurry. "Now for the shore — who's 
for the shore ?" — " These gentlemen, I am sorry 
to say." They are away, and never said Good-by. 
Ah ! now they wave it from the little boat. " Good- 
by ! Good-by ! " Three cheers from them ; three 
more from us ; three more from them ; and they 
are gone. 

To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a 
hundred times ! This waiting for the latest mail- 
bags is worse than all. If we could have gone 
off in the midst of that last burst, we should 
have started triumphantly ; but to lie here two 
hours and more, in the damp fog, neither staying 



74 A DICKENS READER 

at home nor going abroad, is letting one gradually 
down into the very depths of dullness and low 
spirits. 

A speck in the mist, at last ! That 's some- 
thing. It is the boat we wait for ! That 's more 
to the purpose. The captain appears on the pad- 
dle-box with his speaking-trumpet ; the officers 
take their stations; all hands are on the alert; 
the flagging hopes of the passengers revive ; the 
cooks pause in their savory work, and look out 
with faces full of interest. 

The boat comes alongside ; the bags are dragged 
in anyhow, and flung down for the moment any- 
where. Three cheers more: and as the first one 
rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a strong 
giant that has just received the breath of life ; the 
two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first 
time ; and the noble ship, with wind and tide 
astern, breaks proudly through the lashed and 
foaming water. 



AMERICAN NOTES 75 



A HEAD-WIND 

It is the third morning. I am awakened out 
o£ my sleep by a dismal shriek from my wife, 
who demands to know whether there 's any dan- 
ger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The 
water-jug is plunging and leaping like a lively 
dolphin ; all the smaller articles are afloat, except 
my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, 
high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Sud- 
denly I see them spring into the air, and behold' 
the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, 
sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time 
the door entirely disappears, and a new one is 
opened in the floor. Then I begin to compre- 
hend that the state room is standing on its head. 

Before it is possible to make any arrangement 
compatible with this novel state of things, the ship 
rights. Before one can say " Thank Heaven!" 
she wrongs again. Before one can cry she is 
wrong, she seems to have started forward, and 
to be a creature actively running of its own ac- 
cord, with broken knees and failing legs, through 
every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling 
constantly. 

Before one can so much as wonder, she takes 
a high leap into the air. Before she has well 
done that, she takes a deep dive into the water. 
Before she has gained the surface, she throws a 



76 A DICKENS READER 

somersault. The instant she is on her legs, she 
rushes backward. And so she goes on staggering, 
heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, 
pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking : and 
going through all these movements, sometimes 
by turns, and sometimes all together : until one 
feels disposed to roar for mercy. 

A steward passes. " Steward ! " — " Sir ? " — 
" What is the matter ? What do you call this ? " 
— " Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head- 
wind." 

A head-wind ! Imagine a human face upon the 
vessel's prow, with fifteen thousand Sampsons in 
one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her 
exactly betw r een the eyes whenever she attempts 
to advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with 
every pulse and artery of her huge body swollen 
and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to 
go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the sea 
roaring, the rain beating ; all in furious array 
against her. 

Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the 
clouds, in fearful sympathy with the w r aves, mak- 
ing another ocean in the air. Add to all this, the 
clattering on deck and down below; the tread 
of hurried feet ; the loud, hoarse shouts of sea- 
men ; the gurgling in and out of water through 
the scuppers; 1 with every now and then, the strik- 
ing of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with 

1 Scuppers : openings cut through the waterways of a ship. 



AMERICAN NOTES 77 

the deep, dead, heavy sound of thunder heard 
within a vault ; — and there is the head-wind of 
that January morning. . .. . 

To say that all is grand, and all appalling 
and horrible in the last degree, is nothing. Words 
cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it. 
Only a dream can call it up again in all its fury, 
rage, and passion. 



78 A DICKENS READER 



NIAGARA FALLS 

We were at the foot of the American Fall. I 
could see an immense torrent of water tearing 
headlong down from some great height, but had 
no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but 
vague immensity. 

When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, 
and were crossing the swollen river immediately 
before both cataracts, I began to feel what it 
was : but I was in a manner stunned, and unable 
to comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was 
not until I catfie on Table Rock, and looked — 
Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright-green 
water ! — that it came upon me in its full might 
and majesty. 

Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I 
was standing, the first effect, and the enduring 
one — instant and lasting — of that tremendous 
spectacle was peace. Peace of mind : tranquil- 
lity : calm recollections of the dead : great 
thoughts of eternal rest and happiness : noth- 
ing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once 
stamped upon my heart, an image of beauty ; to 
remain there, changeless and indelible, until its 
pulses cease to beat, forever. 

Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life 
receded from my view and lessened in the 
distance, during the ten memorable days we 



AMERICAN NOTES 79 

passed on that enchanted ground! What voices 
spoke from out the thundering water ; what 
faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon 
me from its gleaming depths; what heavenly 
promise glistened in those angels' tears, the 
drops of many hues, that showered around, and 
twined themselves about the gorgeous arches 
which the changing rainbows made ! . . . 

To wander to and fro all day, and see the cat- 
aracts from all points of view ; to stand upon the 
edge of the great Horseshoe Fall, marking the 
hurried water gathering strength as it approached 
the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause before it 
shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's 
level up at the torrent as it came streaming down ; 
to climb the neighboring heights and watch it 
through the trees, and see the wreathing water in 
the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge ; 
to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three 
miles below ; watching the river as, stirred by no 
visible cause, it heaved and eddied and awoke 
the echoes, being troubled yet, far down beneath 
the surface, by its giant leap ; to have Niagara be- 
fore me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red 
in the day's decline, and gray as evening slowly 
fell upon it; to look upon it every day, and wake 
up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice : this 
was enough. 

I think in every quiet season now, still do those 
waters roll and leap, and roar and tumble, all day 



80 A DICKENS READER 

long ; still are the rainbows spanning them, a 
hundred feet below. Still when the sun is shin- 
ing on them, do they shine and glow like molten 
gold. Still, when the day is gloomy, do they fall 
like snow, or seem to crumble away like the 
front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the 
rock like dense white smoke. 

But always does the mighty stream appear to 
die as it comes down, and always from its unfath- 
omable grave arises that tremendous ghost of 
spray and mist which is never laid ; which has 
haunted this place with the same dread solemnity 
since darkness brooded on the deep, and that 
first flood before the deluge — light — came 
rushing on creation at the word of God. 



DAVID COPPERFIELD 

David Copperfield appeared in 1850. Its success was immedi- 
ately assured. Dickens said of it, "Of all my books, I like 
this the best." 

In this novel are portrayed many of the varied experiences 
in Dickens's personal life. The story tells us of David Copper- 
field's experiences as a child, his early struggles and priva- 
tions which at last ended in prosperity. In the book we find 
pathos and humor singularly combined. A host of characters 
are portrayed, all vividly described by the mind of a master. 
The story is in many respects autobiographic; for David Copper- 
field, like Dickens, was employed in a lawyer's office, then be- 
came a parliamentary reporter, and at last a successful novelist. 

The persons mentioned in this narrative are : David Copper- 
field, who tells the story ; his old schoolmate, James Steerforth ; 
Ham Peggotty, a rough but noble young fisherman, and Little 
Em'ly, his sister by adoption. The scene is at the Yarmouth 
shore, in England. 

The selection is from Chapter LV. 



A SHIPWRECK 

It was broad day — eight or nine o'clock ; 
the storm was raging ; and some one was knock- 
ing and calling at my door. 

"What is the matter? " I cried. 

" A wreck ! Close by ! " 

I sprang out of bed, and asked, what wreck ? 

" A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden 
with fruit and wine. Make haste, sir, if you want 
to see her ! It 's thought, down on the beach, 
that she '11 go to pieces any moment." 



82 A DICKENS READER 

The excited voice went clamoring along the 
staircase; and I wrapped myself in my clothes as 
quickly as I could, and ran into the street. 

Numbers of people were there before me, all 
running in one direction, to the beach. I ran the 
same way, outstripping a good many, and soon 
came facing the wild sea. . . . 

In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind 
and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeak- 
able confusion, and my first breathless efforts to 
stand against the weather, I was so confused that 
I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw noth- 
ing but the foaming heads of the great waves. 

A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, 
pointed with his bare arm (a tattooed arrow on 
it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. 
Then, great Heaven, I saw it, close upon us ! 

One mast was broken short off, six or eight 
feet from the deck, and lay over the side, en- 
tangled in a mass of sail and rigging ; and all that 
ruin, as the ship rolled and beat — which she 
did without a moment's pause, and with a violence 
quite inconceivable — beat the side as if it would 
stave it in. 

Some efforts were even then being made to 
cut this portion of the wreck away ; for, as the 
ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us 
in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at 
work with axes, especially one active figure with 
long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. 



DAVID COPPERFIELD 83 

But a great cry, which was audible even above 
the wind and water, rose from the shore at this 
moment ; the sea, sweeping over the rolling 
wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, 
spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, 
into the boiling surge. 

The second mast was yet standing, with the 
rags of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of 
broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship 
had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said 
in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again. 
I understood him to say that the ship was part- 
ing amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for 
the rolling and beating waves were too tremen- 
dous for any human work to suffer long. 

As he spoke, there was another great cry of 
pity from the beach ; four men arose with the 
wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of 
the remaining mast ; uppermost, the active figure 
with the curling hair. . . . Again we lost her, 
and again she rose. Two men were gone. The 
agony on shore increased. Men groaned, and 
clasped their hands; women shrieked, and 
turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and 
down along the beach, crying for help where 
no help could be. I found myself one of these, 
frantically imploring a lot of sailors whom I knew, 
not to let those two lost creatures perish before 
our eyes. 

They were making out to me, in an agitated 



84 A DICKENS READER 

way, that the lifeboat had been bravely manned 
an hour ago, and could do nothing ; and that as 
no man would be so desperate as to attempt to 
wade off with a rope, and establish a communi- 
cation with the shore, there was nothing left to 
try; when I noticed that some new sensation 
moved the people on the beach, and saw them 
part, and Ham came breaking through them to 
the front. . . . 

Another cry arose on the shore ; and looking 
to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on 
blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly 
up in triumph round the active figure left alone 
upon the mast. 

Against such a sight, and against such deter- 
mination as that of the calmly desperate man who 
was accustomed to lead half the people present, 
I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. 
" Mas'r Davy," he said, cheerily grasping me by 
both hands, "if my time is come, 'tis come. If 
'ta'n't, I '11 bide it. Lord above bless you, and 
bless all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going 
off!". . . 

I saw hurry on the beach, and men running 
with ropes from a capstan that was there, and 
penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him 
from me. Then I saw him standing alone, in a 
seaman's frock and trowsers ; a rope in his hand, 
or slung to his wrist ; another round his body ; 
and several of the best men holding, at a little 



DAVID COPPERFIELD 85 

distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, 
slack upon the shore, at his feet. 

The wreck, even to my unpracticed eye, was 
breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the 
middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon 
the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. 
He had a singular red cap on, — not like a sailor's 
cap, but of a finer color ; and as the few yield- 
ing planks between him and destruction rolled 
and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell 
rang, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw 
him do it now, and thought I was going dis- 
tracted, when his action brought an old remem- 
brance to my mind of a once dear friend. 

Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the 
silence of suspended breath behind him, and the 
storm before, until there was a great retiring 
wave, when, with a backward glance at those who 
held the rope which was made fast round his 
body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was 
buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, 
falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam ; 
then drawn again to land. They hauled in 
hastily. 

He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from 
where I stood ; but he took no thought of that. 
He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions 
for leaving him more free — or so I judged from 
the motion of his arm — and was gone as be- 
fore. 



86 A DICKENS READER 

And now he made for the wreck, rising with 
the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath 
the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, 
borne on towards the ship, striving hard and 
valiantly. The distance was nothing, but the 
power of the sea and the wind made the strife 
deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was 
so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes 
he would be clinging to it, — when a high, green, 
vast hillside of water, moving on shoreward, from 
beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it 
with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! 

Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if 
a mere cask had been broken, in running to the 
spot where they were hauling in. Consternation 
was in every face. They drew him to my very 
feet — insensible — dead. 

He was carried to the nearest house ; and no 
one preventing me, I remained near him, busy, 
while every means of restoration was tried ; but 
he had been beaten to death by the great wave, 
and his generous heart was stilled forever. 

As I sat beside the bed, when hope was aban- 
doned and all was done, a fisherman, who had 
known me when Emily and I were children, and 
ever since, whispered my name at the door. 

" Sir, " said he, with tears starting in his 
weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling 
lips, was ashy pale, " will you come over yon- 
der?" 



DAVID COPPERFIELD 87 

The old remembrance that had been recalled to 
me was in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, 
leaning on the arm he held out to support me : 

" Has a body come ashore? " 

He said, " Yes." 

" Do I know it ? " I asked then. 

He answered nothing. 

But he led me to the shore. And on that part 
of it where she and I had looked for shells, two 
children — on that part of it where some lighter 
fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, 
had been scattered by the wind — among the ruins 
of the home he had wronged — I saw him lying 
with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen 
him lie at school. 



OLIVER TWIST 

Oliver Twist was published in 1838. 

The story shows the miseries of life in an English poorhouse. 
The inmates were then treated with cruelty, and wrong-doing was 
daily practised by those in charge of the inmates. 

Oliver Twist was born in this poorhouse, where his mother 
died. When the boy asked for more of the thin gruel, he was 
soundly whipped. He ran away to London, and at last found a 
home ; but he was kidnapped and forced to live with thieves and 
compelled to aid them in house-breaking and wrong-doing. He 
is rescued from this life by a country doctor. He finds a sister. 
There are about twenty prominent characters. The author's pur- 
pose is to show crime in all of its repulsiveness. He also showed 
the evil of training boys to commit those crimes and practices. 

The plot is managed with the highest art and with consum- 
mate power by him, who, in the midst of arduous duties, found 
opportunities of visiting personally those haunts of suffering in 
London which needed a keen, intelligent eye and a large, sym- 
pathetic heart to bring them before the public for relief. 

The selections are from Chapters II and XXXII respec- 
tively. 

OLIVER TWIST AT THE WORKHOUSE 

The room in which the boys were fed was a 
large stone hall with a copper l at one end. Out 
of this the master, dressed in an apron for the 
purpose, and assisted by one or two women, 
ladled the gruel at meal-times. Of this festive 
composition each boy had one porringer, 2 and no 
more — except on occasions of great public re- 

1 Copper : a large boiler made of copper and bricks. 

2 Porringer : a cup from which children are fed. 



OLIVER TWIST 89 

joicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of 
bread besides. The bowls never wanted wash- 
ing. The boys polished them with their spoons 
till they shone again ; and when they had per- 
formed this operation, they would sit staring at 
the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could 
have devoured the very bricks of which it was 
composed; employing themselves meanwhile in 
sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the 
view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel 
that might have been cast thereon. 

Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver 
Twist and his companions suffered the tortures 
of slow starvation for three months ; at last they 
got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one 
boy, who was tall for his age, and had n't been 
used to that sort of thing (for his father kept a 
small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, 
that unless he had another basin of gruel per 
diem y he was afraid he might some night happen 
to eat the boy who slept next to him. He had a 
wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed 
him. A council was held; lots were cast who 
should walk up to the master after supper that 
evening and ask for more ; and it fell to Oliver 
Twist. 

The evening arrived ; the boys took their places. 
The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed him- 
self at the copper ; his pauper assistants ranged 
themselves behind him ; the gruel was served 



9 o A DICKENS READER 

out ; and a long grace said over a short com- 
mons. 1 The gruel disappeared; the boys whis- 
pered to each other, and winked at Oliver, while 
his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, 
he was desperate with hunger and reckless with 
misery. He rose from the table ; and advancing 
to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, 
somewhat alarmed at his own temerity : 

" Please, sir, I want some more." 

The master was a fat, healthy man ; but he 
turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonish- 
ment on the small rebel for some seconds, and 
then clung for support to the copper. The assist- 
ants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with 
fear. 

" What ! " said the master at length, in a faint 
voice. 

" Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some 
more." 

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with 
the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked 
aloud for the beadle. 2 

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, 
when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great 
excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the 
high chair, said : 

" Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver 
Twist has asked for more ! " 

1 Commons : fare. 

2 Beadle : in England, a petty official. 



OLIVER TWIST 91 

There was a general start. Horror was depicted 
on every countenance. 

" For more .'" said Mr. Limbkins. " Compose 
yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do 
I understand that he asked for more, after he 
had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?" l 

" He did, sir, " replied Bumble. 

" That boy will be hung," said the gentleman 
in the white waistcoat. " I know that boy will be 
hung." 

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's 
opinion. An animated discussion took place. 
Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; 
and a bill was next morning pasted on the 
outside of tjie gate, offering a reward of five 
pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist 
off the hands of the parish. In other words, five 
pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any 
man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any 
trade, business, or calling. 

" I was never more convinced of anything in 
my life," said the gentleman in the white waist- 
coat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill 
next morning ; " I was never more convinced of 
anything in my life, than I am that that boy 
will come to be hung." 

1 Dietary : & rule of diet prescribed in workhouses. 



92 A DICKENS READER 



OLIVER TWIST AND THE COUNTRY LIFE 1 

Who can tell the pleasure and delight, the 
peace of mind and soft tranquillity, the sickly 
boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green 
hills and rich woods of an inland village ! Who 
can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink 
into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close and 
noisy places, and carry their own freshness deep 
into jaded hearts ! Men who have lived in crowded, 
pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and never 
wished for change ; men to whom custom has in- 
deed been second nature, and who have come al- 
most to love each brick and stone that formed the 
narrow boundaries of their daily walks: even 
they, with the hand of death upon them, have been 
known to yearn for one short glimpse of Nature's 
face. Carried far from the scenes of their old 
pains and pleasures, they have seemed to pass at 
once into a new state of being ; and crawling 
forth, from day to day, to some green sunny spot, 
have had such memories wakened within them 
by the sight of sky, and hill and plain, and 
glistening water, that a foretaste of Heaven itself 
has soothed their quick decline, and they have 
sunk into their tombs as peacefully as the sun, 
whose setting they watched from their lonely 

1 The unhappy charity boy has been taken into the home of 
Mrs. Maylie and her niece, Miss Rose, who live in the country. 



OLIVER TWIST 93 

chamber window but a few hours before, faded 
from their dim and feeble sight. 

The memories which peaceful country scenes 
call up are not of this world, nor of its thoughts 
and hopes. Their gentle influence may teach us 
how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of 
those we loved ; may purify our thoughts, and 
bear down before it old enmity and hatred : but 
beneath all this there lingers, in the least reflec- 
tive mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness 
of having held such feelings long before, in some 
remote and distant time, which calls up solemn 
thoughts of distant times to come, and bends 
down pride and worldliness beneath it. 

It was a lovely spot to which they repaired. 
Oliver, whose days had been spent among squalid 
crowds, and in the midst of noise and brawling, 
seemed to enter upon a new existence there. The 
rose and the honeysuckle clung to the cottage 
walls ; the ivy crept round the trunks of the trees ; 
and the garden flowers perfumed the air with 
delicious odors. . . . 

It was a happy time. The days were peaceful 
and serene; the nights brought with them neither 
fear nor care ; no languishing in a wretched 
prison, or associating with wretched men ; noth- 
ing but pleasant and happy thoughts. . . . He 
would walk with Mrs. Maylie and Rose, and hear 
them talk of books ; or perhaps sit near them, in 
some shady place, and listen while the young 



94 A DICKENS READER 

lady read — which he could have done until it 
grew too dark to see the letters. 

Then he had his own lesson for the next day 
to prepare ; and at this he would work hard, in a 
little room which looked into the garden, till even- 
ing came slowly on, when the ladies would walk 
out again, and he with them, listening with such 
pleasure to all they said ; and so happy if they 
wanted a flower that he could climb to reach, or 
had forgotten anything he could run to fetch, 
that he could never be quick enough about it. 

When it became quite dark, and they returned 
home, the young lady would sit down to the piano 
and play some pleasant air, or sing, in a low and 
gentle voice, some old song which it pleased her 
aunt to hear. There would be no candles lighted 
at such times as these ; and Oliver would sit by 
one of the windows, listening to the sweet music, 
in perfect rapture. . . . 

In the morning, Oliver would be a-foot by six 
o'clock, roaming the fields and plundering the 
hedges, far and wide, for nosegays of wild flowers, 
with which he would return laden home, and 
which it took great care and consideration to 
arrange, to the best advantage, for the embellish- 
ment of the breakfast table. . . • 

So three months glided away ; three months 
which, in the life of the most blessed and favored 
of mortals, might have been unmingled happi- 
ness, and which, in Oliver's, were true felicity. 



OLIVER TWIST 95 

With the purest and most amiable generosity on 
one side, and the truest, warmest, soul-felt grati- 
tude on the other, it is no wonder that, by the 
end of that short time, Oliver Twist had become 
completely domesticated with the old lady and 
her niece, and that the fervent attachment of his 
young and sensitive heart was repaid by their 
pride in, and attachment to himself. 



BLEAK HOUSE 

This romance appeared in 1853. It was written as a protest 
and warning against the law's delays, as exhibited in the Court 
of Chancery. It contains the tragedy of Sir Leicester and Lady 
Dedlock. It also contains the short but touching story of poor 
Jo. It not only pictures the position of wards in Chancery, but 
shows the slow process of Jaw in England at that time. At the 
time this book was published, there was a suit before the court 
which had then continued twenty years and was no nearer a final 
settlement than at the beginning. Between thirty and forty 
counsel had appeared at one time and the cost had already 
exceeded three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This was 
called " a friendly suit" This novel sets forth the truth con- 
cerning the wrongs of the Court of Chancery. 

The narrative is in the language of Esther Summerson. Her 
guardian is John Jarndyce. These two, with Ada Clare and 
Horace Skimpole, have sought out three poor and orphaned child- 
ren, who are living in a London garret. 

The selections are from Chapters XV and XXIII respectively. 



CHARLEY 



We all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at 
a very short distance. We soon found the chand- 
ler's shop. In it was a good-natured-looking old 
woman. 

" Neckett's children ?" said she, in reply to my 
inquiry. "Yes, surely, miss. Three pair, if you 
please. Door right opposite the top of the stairs." 
And she handed me the key across the counter. 



BLEAK HOUSE 97 

I glaneed at the key, and glanced at her ; but 
she took it for granted that I knew what to do 
with it. As it could be intended only for the 
children's door, I came out, without asking any 
questions, and led the way up the dark stairs. . . . 

We went up to the top room. I tapped at the 
door, and a little shrill voice inside said, " We are 
locked in. Mrs. Blinder 's got the key." 

I applied the key on hearing this, and opened 
the door. 

In a poor room, with a sloping ceiling, and 
containing very little furniture, was a mite of a 
boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hush- 
ing a heavy child of eighteen months. There 
was no fire, though the weather was cold ; both 
children were wrapped in some poor shawls and 
tippets, as a substitute. Their clothing was not 
so warm, however, but that their noses looked 
red and pinched, and their small figures shrunken, 
as the boy walked up and down, nursing and 
hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. 

"Who has locked you up here alone?" we 
naturally asked. 

" Charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze 
at us. 

" Is Charley your brother ? " 

"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called 
her Charley." 

" Are there any more of you besides Charley ? " 

" Me," said the boy, " and Emma," patting the 



98 A DICKENS READER 

limp bonnet of the child he was nursing. " And 
Charley." 

" Where is Charley now?" 

" Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to 
walk up and down again, and taking the nan- 
keen bonnet much too near the bedstead, by 
trying to gaze at us at the same time. 

We were looking at each other and at these 
two children, when there came into the room a 
very little girl, childish in figure, but shrewd and 
older-looking in the face — pretty-faced too — 
wearing a womanly sort of bonnet much too large 
for her, and drying her bare arms on a womanly 
sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrin- 
kled with washing, and the soapsuds were yet 
smoking which she wiped off her arms. But for 
this, she might have been a child, playing at 
washing, and imitating a poor working woman 
with a quick observation of the truth. 

She had come running from someplace in the 
neighborhood, and had made all the haste she 
could. Consequently, though she was very light, 
she was out of breath, and could not speak at 
first, as she stood panting, and wiping her arms, 
and looking quietly at us. 

" 0, here 's Charley ! " said the boy. 

The child he was nursing stretched forth its 
arms and cried out to be taken by Charley. The 
little girl took it, in a womanly sort of manner 
belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood 



BLEAK HOUSE 99 

looking at us over the burden that clung to her 
most affectionately. 

" Is it possible/' whispered my guardian, as 
we put a chair for the little creature and got her 
to sit down with her load, the boy keeping close 
to her, holding to her apron — "that this child 
works for the rest? Look at this ! — Look at this ! " 

It was a thing to look at. The three children 
close together, and two of them relying solely on 
the third, and the third so young and yet with 
an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely 
on the childish figure. 

" Charley, Charley! " said my guardian. "How 
old are you ? " 

" Over thirteen, sir/' replied the child. 

"0, what a great age," said my guardian. 
" What a great age, Charley ! " 

I cannot describe the tenderness with which 
he spoke to her ; half playfully, yet all the more 
compassionately and mournfully. 

" And do you live alone here with these babies, 
Charley?" said my guardian. 

" Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into 
his face with perfect confidence, "since father 
died." 

" And how do you live, Charley ? Charley," 
said my guardian, turning his face away for a 
moment, " how do you live ? " 

"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. 
I'm out washing to-day." 



ioo A DICKENS READER 

" God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. 
" You 're not tall enough to reach the tub ! " 

" In pattens I am, sir/' she said quickly. " I 've 
got a high pair as belonged to mother." 

"And when did mother die? Poor mother !" 

" Mother died just after Emma was born/' said 
the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. 
" Then father said I was to be as good a mother 
to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I 
worked at home, and did cleaning and nursing 
and washing, for a long time before I began to 
go out. And that's how I know how; don't you 
see, sir c 

" And do you often go out ! " 

" As often as I can," said Charley, opening her 
eyes and smiling, " because of earning sixpences 
and shillings." 

" And do you always lock the babies up when 
you go out?" 

"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said 
Charley. . . . " Perhaps I can run in sometimes, 
and they can play, you know, and Tom isn't 
afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" 

"No!" said Tom, stoutly. 

" When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted 
down in the court, and they show up here quite 
bright — almost quite bright. Don't they, Tom? " 

"Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite 
bright." 

" Then he 's as good as gold," said the little 



BLEAK HOUSE 101 

creature — 0, in such a motherly, womanly way ! 
" And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. 
And when he 's tired, he goes to bed himself. 
And when I come home and light the candle, 
and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has 
it with me. Don't you, Tom?" 

" yes, Charley," said Tom, " that I do ! " And 
either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of 
his life, or in gratitude and love for Charley, 
who was all in all to him, he laid his face among 
the scanty folds of her frock, and passed from 
laughing into crying. 

It was the first time since our entry that a 
tear had been shed among these children. The 
little orphan girl had spoken of their father, and 
their mother, as if all that sorrow were subdued 
by the necessity of taking courage, and by her 
childish importance in being able to work, and 
by her bustling, busy way. But now, when Tom 
cried, although she sat quite tranquil, looking 
quietly at us, and did not by any movement dis- 
turb a hair of the head of either of her little 
charges, I saw two silent tears fall down her 
face. 

I stood at the window with Ada, pretending 
to look at the housetops, and the blackened stack 
of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the birds 
in little cages, belonging to the neighbors, when 
I found that Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, 
had come in — perhaps it had taken her all this 



ioa A DICKENS READER 

time to get up stairs— and was talking to my 
guardian. 

"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir/' 
she said ; "who could take it from them?" 

" Well, well ! " said my guardian to us two. 
"It is enough that the time will come when this 
good woman will find that it was much, and that 
forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these — 
This child/' he added, after a few moments, 
" could she possibly continue this ? " 

"Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. 
Blinder, getting her heavy breath by painful de- 
grees. " She 's as handy as it 's possible to be. 
Bless you, sir, the way she tended the two child- 
ren after the mother died was the talk of the 
yard. And it was a wonder to see her with him 
after he was ill, it really was. ' Mrs. Blinder,' he 
said to me, the very last he spoke — he was ly- 
ing there — 'Mrs. Blinder, I saw an angel sitting 
in this room last night along with my child, and 
I trust her to our Father.' " 



ii 

One night, after I had gone to my room, I 
heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, " Come 
in," and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly 
dressed in mourning, w T ho dropped a courtesy. 

"If you please, miss," said the girl, in a soft 
voice, "I am Charley!" 



BLEAK HOUSE 103 

" Why, so you are I " said I, stooping down in 
astonishment, and giving her a kiss, "How glad 
I am to see you, Charley ! " 

"If you please, miss," pursued Charley, in the 
same soft voice, " I 'm your maid." 

"Charley?" 

" If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with 
Mr. Jarndyce's love." 

I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck, 
and looked at Charley, 

"And Oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her 
hands, with the tears starting down her dimpled 
cheeks, " Tom's at school, if you please; and lit- 
tle Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss. And 
Tom, he would have been at school ; and Emma, 
she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder ; and I 
should have been here, all a deal sooner, miss ; 
only Mr. Jarndyce thought that Tom and Emma 
and I had better get a little used to parting first, 
we were so small. Don't cry, if you please, 



miss." 



"I can't help it, Charley." 

"No, miss, I can't help it," says Charley. " And 
if you please, miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he 
thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. 
And, if you please, Tom and Emma and I are 
to see each other once a month. And, I'm so 
happy and so thankful, miss," cried Charley, 
with a heaving heart, " and I '11 try to be such a 
good maid ! " 



104 A DICKENS READER 

Charley dried her tears, and entered on her 
f unctions, going in her matronly little way about 
the room, and folding up everything she could 
lay her hands upon. 

Presently Charley came creeping back to my 
side, and said, " Oh don't cry, if you please, miss." 

And I said again, " I can't help it, Charley." 

And Charley said again : " No, miss ; I can't 
help it." And so, after all, I did cry for joy, in- 
deed, and so did she. 



MUGBY JUNCTION 

Mugby Junction appeared in 1866. The hero, or narrator of 
the story, is a clerk in the firm of " Barbox Brothers." Later, 
he becomes a partner. At last he becomes the firm itself. 

On account of many and bitter disappointments, and the faith- 
lessness of one whom he loved, he is moody and very unhappy. 
Finally circumstances awaken and develop his better and higher 
nature and he extends a helping hand to all who need him. 

One day, upon the street of a large town, he is overtaken and 
accosted by a little girl whose name is Polly. She tells him that 
she has lost her way. He takes her to his hotel, protects and 
cares for her and at last her mother arrives. Her mother proves 
to be the woman he had once loved. 

This selection is from Chapter II. 



POLLY 

Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed 
in the hotel he chose, and having appointed his 
dinner hour, Barbox Brothers l went out for a 
walk in the busy streets. Although he had 
arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, 
he had since insensibly walked about the town 
so far and so long that the lamp-lighters were 
now at their work in the streets, and the shops 
were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus reminded to 
turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of 
doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, 
and a very little voice said : 

1 In the story the traveller is called "Barbox Brothers " be- 
cause that is the name printed on his baggage. 



106 A DICKENS READER 

" Oh ! if you please, I am lost ! " 

He looked down and saw a very little fair- 
haired girl. 

" Yes," she said, confirming her words with a 
serious nod. " I am indeed. I am lost ! " 

Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him 
for help, descried none, and said, bending low : 

" Where do you live, my child ? " 

" I don't know where I live," she returned. " I 
am lost." 

" What is your name ? " 

"Polly." 

" What is your other name?" 

The reply was prompt, but was not under- 
stood. 

Imitating the sound as he caught it, he haz- 
arded the guess, " Trivits?" 

"Oh no!" said the child, shaking her head. 
" Nothing like that." 

" Say it again, little one." 

An unpromising business. For this time it had 
quite a different sound. 

He made the venture, " Paddens ? " 

" Oh no ! " said the child. " Nothing like that." 

" Once more. Let us try it again, dear." 

A most hopeless business. This time it swelled 
into four syllables. "It can't be Tappitarver ? " 
said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his 
hat in discomfiture. 

"No! It ain't," the child quietly assented. 



MUGBY JUNCTION 107 

On her trying this unfortunate name once 
more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, 
it swelled into eight syllables at least. 

"Ah ! I think/' said Barbox Brothers, with a 
desperate air of resignation, " that we had better 
give it up," 

" But I am lost," said the child, nestling her 
little hand more closely in his, "and you'll take 
care of me, won't you ? " . . . 

"Lost!" he repeated, looking down at the 
child. " I am sure / am. What is to be done ? " 

" Where do you live?" asked the child, look- 
ing up at him wistfully. 

" Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely 
in the direction of his hotel. 

"Hadn't we better go there? " said the child. 

"Really," he replied, " I don't know but what 
we had." 

So they set off hand in hand. . . . 

" We are going to have dinner when we get 
there, I suppose," said Polly. 

" Well," he rejoined, "I — Yes, I suppose we 



are." 



"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child. 

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, 
" yes, I think I do." 

" I do mine," said Polly. " Have you any broth- 
ers and sisters ? " 

"No. Have you?" 

"Mine are dead." 



108 A DICKENS READER 

" Oh ! " saidBarbox Brothers. With that absurd 
sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weigh- 
ing him down, he would not have known how to 
pursue the conversation beyond this curt re- 
joinder, but that the child was always ready for 
him. 

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand 
coaxingly in his, " are you going to do to amuse 
me after dinner ? " 

"Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox 
Brothers, very much at a loss, " I have not the 
slightest idea." 

" Then I tell you what," said Polly. " Have you 
got any cards at your house ? " 

" Plenty," said Barbox Brothers, in a boastful 
vein. 

" Very well. Then I '11 build houses, and you 
shall look at me. You must n't blow, you know." 

" Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. " No, no, no. 
No blowing. Blowing's not fair." 

He flattered himself that he had said this 
pretty well for an idiotic monster ; but the child, 
instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his at- 
tempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly de- 
stroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying 
compassionately : "What a funnyman you are ! " 

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he 
every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, 
and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for 
a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly 



MUGBY JUNCTION 109 

to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack than 
he to be bound in slavery to Polly. 

" Do you know any stories ? " she asked him. 

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : 
" No." 

" What a dunce you must be, must n't you ? " 
said Polly. 

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : 
" Yes." 

" Would you like me to teach you a story ? 
But you must remember it, you know, and be 
able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards." 
He professed that it would afford him the 
highest mental gratification to be taught a story, 
and that he would humbly endeavor to retain it 
in his mind. 

Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new turn 
in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, 
commenced a long romance, of which every rel- 
ishing clause began with the words : " So this," 
or " And so this." As, "So this boy ; " or "So this 
fairy ; " or " And so this pie was four yards round 
and two yards and a quarter deep." 

The interest of the romance was derived from 
the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy 
for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which 
purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy 
ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and 
swelled and swelled. There were many tributary 
circumstances, but the interest culminated in the 



no A DICKENS READER 

total consumption of this pie, and the bursting 
of this boy. 

Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, 
with serious attentive face, and ear bent down, 
much jostled on the pavement of the busy town, 
but afraid of losing a single incident of the story, 
lest he should be examined in it by and by, and 
found deficient. 

Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he 
had to say at the bar, and awkwardly enough : 

" I have found a little girl ! " 

The whole establishment turned out to look 
at the little girl. Nobody knew her; nobody 
could make out her name, as she set it forth — 
except one chambermaid, who said it was Con- 
stantinople — which it was n't. 

"I will dine with my young friend in a private 
room," said Barbox Brothers to the hotel clerk, 
"and perhaps you will be so good as to let the 
police know that the pretty baby is here. I sup- 
pose she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she 
has not been already. Come along, Polly." 

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, 
but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, she was 
carried up by Barbox Brothers. The dinner was 
a most transcendent success, and the Barbox 
sheepishness, under Polly's directions how to 
mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy 
over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was 
another fine sight. 



MUGBY JUNCTION in 

"And now/' said Polly, "while we are at dinner, 
you be good, and tell me that story I taught you." 

With the tremors of a Civil Service examina- 
tion upon him, and very uncertain indeed, not 
only as to the time at which the pie appeared in 
history, but also as to the measurements of that 
fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, 
but under encouragement did very fairly. 

" I told you to be good," said Polly, " and you 
are good, ain't you ? " 

" I hope so, " replied Barbox Brothers. 

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated 
on a platform of soft cushions in a chair at his 
right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two 
on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, 
and even with a gracious kiss. In getting her 
feet upon her chair, however, to give him this 
last reward, she toppled forward among the 
dishes, and caused him to exclaim, as he effected 
her rescue ; " Gracious Angels ! Whew ! I thought 
we were in the fire. Polly ! " 

" What a coward you are, ain't you ? " said Polly, 
when replaced. 

" Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. " Whew- 
Don't, Polly ! Don't flourish your spoon, or you 'h 
go over sideways. Don't tilt up your legs when 
you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards. 
Whew ! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, 
nearly succumbing to despair, " we are environed 
with dangers." 



ii2 A DICKENS READER 

Indeed, he could see no security from the 
pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in pro- 
posing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. 

" I will, if you will," said Polly, 

So, as peace of mind should go before all, he 
begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring 
a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a 
screen, and close in Polly and himself before the 
fire, as it were in a snug room within the room. 
Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on 
his footstool, contemplating Polly as she built 
successfully, and growing blue in the face with 
holding his breath, lest he should blow the house 
down. 

" How you stare, don't you ? " said Polly, in a 
houseless pause. 

Detected in this ignoble fact, he felt obliged 
to admit : " I am afraid I was looking rather hard 
at you, Polly." 

" Why do you stare ? " asked Polly. 

" I cannot," he murmured to himself, " recall 
why, — I don't know, Polly." 

" You must be a simpleton to do things and 
not know why, mustn't you?" said Polly. 

In spite of this reproof, he went into the build- 
ing trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they 
built three stories high, four stories high ; even 
five. 

" I say ! Who do you think is coming ? " asked 
Polly, rubbing her eyes after tea. 



MUGBY JUNCTION 113 

He guessed : " The waiter ? " 

" No," said Polly, " the dustman. I am getting 
sleepy." 

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers ! 

" I don't think I am going to be fetched to- 
night/' said Polly. " What do you think?" 

He thought not either. After another quarter 
of an hour, the dustman not only impending, 
but actually arriving, recourse was had to the 
chambermaid, who cheerily undertook that the 
child should sleep in a comfortable and whole- 
some room, which she herself would share. 

" And I know you will be careful, won't you," 
said Barbox Brothers, as a new fear dawned 
upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?" 

Polly found this so highly entertaining that 
she was under the necessity of clutching him 
round the neck with both arms as he sat on his 
footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him 
to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. 

" Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you ? " said 
Polly. " Do you fall out of bed? " 

" N — not generally, Polly." 

" No more do I." 

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug 
or two to keep him going, and then giving that 
confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed 
up in the hand of the chambermaid, she trotted 
off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. 



DOMBEY AND SON 

Dombey and Son was published in 1848. The scene is laid in 
England. Mrs. Dombey dies and leaves her husband with a baby 
boy who is worshipped by Mr. Dombey. He neglects his daughter, 
Florence, and gives all his affection to the little son, Paul. But 
Paul dies. Mr. Dombey marries a cold, proud woman who dis- 
pleases him by her friendliness to Florence, and in other ways. 
Difficulties arise and Florence seeks refuge with an old sea cap- 
tain, — Captain Cuttle, — whom Paul knew and loved. She mar- 
ries Walter Gay, a friend of her childhood. They go to sea. Her 
father fails in business, becomes humbled and desolate. Florence 
returns, comes to her father and cares for him. Some distinct 
and good purpose is apparent in all the novels of Dickens. 
" Dombey and Son " depicts the pride and selfishness of an old 
London merchant and the forgiving, charitable spirit of a lovely 
girl. 

The selections are from Chapters XIV (abridged) and XVI 
respectively. 



PAUL DOMBEY AT THE DANCE 1 

Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, 
Lady Skettles told Paul that he seemed very fond 
of music. Paul replied that he was ; and if she 
was, too, she ought to hear his sister Florence 
sing. 

Lady Skettles presently discovered that she 
was dying with anxiety to have that gratification ; 
and though Florence was very much frightened 

1 The fragile child, Paul Dombey, has been sent from home to 
attend Dr. Blimber's school. His sister Florence has come to 
visit him. 



DOMBEY AND SON 115 

to sing before so many people, and begged ear- 
nestly to be excused, yet, on Paul calling her to 
him, and saying, " Do, Floy ! Please ! For me, 
dear!" she went straight to the piano, and be- 
gan. 

When they all drew a little away, that Paul 
might see her ; and when he saw her sitting there 
alone, so young, and good, and beautiful, and kind 
to him ; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural 
and sweet, and such a golden link between him 
and all his life's love and happiness, rising out of 
the silence ; he turned his face away and hid his 
tears. Not, as he told them when they spoke to 
him, not that the music was too plaintive or too 
sorrowful, but it was so dear to him. 

They all loved Florence ! How could they help 
it ! Paul had known beforehand that they must 
and would ; and sitting in his cushioned corner, 
with calmly folded hands, and one leg loosely 
doubled under him, few would have thought 
what triumph and delight expanded his childish 
bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet 
tranquillity he felt. 

Lavish comments on " Dombey's sister " reached 
his ears from all the boys : admiration of the self- 
possessed and modest little beauty was on every 
lip : reports of her intelligence and accomplish- 
ments floated past him constantly; and, as if 
borne upon the air of the summer night, there 
was a half -intelligible sentiment diffused around, 



n6 A DICKENS READER 

referring to Florence and himself, and breathing 
sympathy for both, that soothed and touched 
him. 

He did not know why. For all that the child 
observed, and felt, and thought that night — the 
present and the absent ; what was then and what 
had been — were blended like the colors of the 
rainbow, or in the plumage of rich birds when 
the sun is shining on them, or in the softening sky 
when the same sun is setting. 

The many things he had had to think of lately 
passed before him in the music ; not as claiming 
his attention over again, or as likely evermore 
to occupy it, but as peacefully disposed of and 
gone. A solitary window, gazed through years 
ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles 
away; upon its waters, fancies, busy with him 
only yesterday, w r ere bushed and lulled to rest 
like broken waves. 

The same mysterious murmur he had wondered 
at when lying on his couch on the beach he still 
heard sounding in his sister's song. Through the 
universal kindness he still thought he heard it 
speaking to him. Thus little Paul sat musing, 
listening, looking on, and dreaming ; and was 
very happy. 



DOMBEY AND SON 117 



THE LAST HOURS OF LITTLE PAUL 1 

Paul had never risen from his little bed. He 
lay there, listening to the noises in the street, 
quite tranquilly ; not caring much how the time 
went, but watching it and watching everything 
about him with observing eyes. 

When the sunbeams struck into his room 
through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the 
opposite wall like golden water, he knew that 
evening was coming on, and that the sky was 
red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, 
and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he 
watched it deepen, deepen, deepen into night. 
Then he thought how the long streets were dot- 
ted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were 
shining overhead. 

His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to 
the river, which he knew was flowing through 
the great city ; and now he thought how black it 
was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the 
hosts of stars — and more than all, how steadily 
it rolled away to meet the sea. 

As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in 

1 The principal persons in this narrative are : Mr. Paul 
Dombey, a rich merchant ; his son, little Paul ; his daughter, 
Florence ; and the nurse who had cared for the boy in in- 
fancy. The fondest hope of the father has been that the son may 
grow to manhood and succeed to the business that he himself 
has established. The mother had died in the infancy of little 
Paul. 



n8 A DICKENS READER 

the street became so rare that he could hear them 
coming, count them as they passed, and lose them 
in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch 
the many-colored ring about the candle, and wait 
patiently for day. 

His only trouble was, the swift and rapid 
river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop 
it — to stem it with his childish hands — or choke 
its way with sand — and when he saw it coming 
on, resistless, he cried out ! But a word from Flor- 
ence, who was always at his side, restored him 
to himself ; and leaning his poor head upon her 
breast, he told Floy of his dream, and smiled. 

When the day began to dawn again, he watched 
for the sun ; and when its cheerful light began to 
sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself — 
pictured ! he saw — the high church towers ris- 
ing up into the morning sky, the town reviving, 
waking, starting into life once more, the river 
glistening as it rolled, (but rolling fast as ever), 
and the country bright with dew. 

Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into 
the street below; the servants in the house were 
roused and busy ; faces looked in at the door, and 
voices asked his attendants softly how he was- 
Paul always answered for himself, " I am better. 
I am a great deal better, thank you ! Tell Papa 
so!" 

By little and little, he got tired of the bustle 
of the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and 



DOMBEY AND SON 119 

people passing and repassing ; and would fall 
asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy 
sense again — the child could hardly tell whether 
this were in his sleeping or his waking mo- 
ments — of that rushing river. " Why, will it 
never stop, Floy ? " he would sometimes ask her. 
" It is bearing me away, I think ! " 

But Floy could always soothe and reassure 
him ; and it was his daily delight to make her lay 
her head down on his pillow, and take some 
rest. 

" You are always -watching me, Floy. Let me 
watch you, now ! " They would prop him up with 
cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he 
would recline the while she lay beside him; bend- 
ing forward oftentimes to kiss her, and whisper- 
ing to those who were near that she was tired, and 
how she had sat up so many nights beside him. 

Thus the flush of the day, in its heat and light, 
would gradually decline ; and again the golden 
water would be dancing on the wall. . . . 

The people around him changed unaccount- 
ably, except Florence ; Florence never changed. 
But this figure [of his father] with its head upon 
its hand returned so often, and remained so long, 
and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never 
being spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, 
that Paul began to wonder languidly if it were 
real ; and in the night-time saw it sitting there, 
with fear. 



120 A DICKENS READER 

"Floy/' he said, " what is that?" 

" Where, dearest?" 

" There ! at the bottom of the bed." 

" There 's nothing there except Papa ! " 

The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and 
coming to the bedside said : 

" My own boy ! Don't you know me ? " 

Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was 
this his father? But the face, so altered, to his 
thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in 
pain ; and before he could reach out both his hands 
to take it between them, and draw it towards 
him, the figure turned away quickly from the 
little bed, and went out at the door. 

Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart ; 
but he knew what she was going to say, and 
stopped her with his face against her lips. The 
next time he observed the figure sitting at the 
bottom of the bed, he called to it. 

" Don't be so sorry for me, dear Papa ! Indeed 
I am quite happy ! " 

His father, coming, and bending down to him 
— which he did quickly, and without first pausing 
by the bedside — Paul held him round the neck, 
and repeated those words to him several times, 
and very earnestly; and Paul never saw him in 
his room again at any time, whether it were day 
or night, but he called out, " Don't be so sorry 
for me ! Indeed I am quite happy ! " This was 
the beginning of his always saying in the morn- 



DOMBEY AND SON 121 

ing that he was a great deal better, and that they 
were to tell his father so. 

How many times the golden water danced upon 
the wall ; how many nights the dark, dark river 
rolled towards the sea in spite o£ him, Paul 
never counted, never sought to know. I£ their 
kindness or his sense of it, could have increased, 
they were more kind, and he more grateful every 
day ; but whether they were many days or few, ap- 
peared of little moment now, to the gentle boy. 

One night he had been thinking of his mother, 
and her picture in the drawing-room down stairs, 
and thought she must have loved sweet Florence 
better than his father did. . . . 

" Floy, did I ever see mamma ? " 

" No, darling ; why ? " 

" Did I ever see any kind face, like mamma's, 
looking at me when I was a baby, Floy? " 

He asked incredulously, as if he had some 
vision of a face before him. 

"Oh yes, dear!" 

"Whose, Floy?" 

" Your old nurse's. Often." 

" And where is my old nurse ? " said Paul. . . . 
" Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please ! " 

" She is not here, darling. She shall come to- 
morrow." 

"Thank you, Floy!" 

Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell 
asleep. When he awoke, the sun was high, and 



122 A DICKENS READER 

the broad day was clear and warm. He lay a little, 
looking at the windows, which were open, and the 
curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and 
fro. Then he said, "Floy, is it to-morrow? Is she 
come?". . . 

The next thing that happened was a noise of 
footsteps on the stairs ; and then Paul woke — 
woke mind and body — and sat upright in his bed. 
He saw them now about him. There was no gray 
mist before them, as there had been sometimes 
in the night. He knew them every one, and called 
them by their names. 

" And who is this ? Is this my old nurse ? " said 
the child, regarding with a radiant smile a figure 
coming in. 

Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed 
those tears at sight of him, and called him her 
dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted 
child. No other woman would have stooped down 
by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and 
put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some 
right to fondle it. No other woman would have 
so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, 
and been so full of tenderness and pity. 

" Floy, this is a kind good face," said Paul. " I 
am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse ! 
Stay here!". . . "Now lay me down," he said, 
" and Floy, come close to me, and let me see you ! " 

Sister and brother wound their arms around 
each other, and the golden light came streaming 
in, and fell upon them, locked together. 



DOMBEY AND SON 123 

" How fast the river runs, between its green 
banks and the rushes, Floy ! But it's very near 
the sea. I hear the waves ! They always said so ! " 

Presently he told her that the motion of the 
boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. 
How green the banks were now, how bright the 
flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes ! 
Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly 
on. And now there was a shore before him. Who 
stood on the bank ! 

He put his hands together, as he had been 
used to do at his prayers. He did not remove 
his arms to do it ; but they saw him fold them so, 
behind her neck. 

" Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the 
face ! But tell them that the print upon the stairs 
at school is not divine enough. The light about 
the head is shining on me as I go ! " 

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, 
and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, 
old fashion ! The fashion that came in with our 
first garments, and will last unchanged until our 
race has run its course, and the wide firmament 
is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion — 
Death ! 

Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older 
fashion yet, of Immortality ! And look upon us, 
angels of young children, with regards not quite 
estranged, when the swift river bears us to the 
ocean ! 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 

In the year 1843, after a visit to America, Mr. Dickens began 
a new tale called Martin Chuzzlewit. In this book are em- 
bodied many of his American experiences and reminiscences. It 
is fresh and vigorous in thought and in style. There is much 
versatility of character and invention. Martin Chuzzlewit, the 
hero, spent some time in a western portion of America, then half 
settled. MarkTapley is with him. He is alight-hearted, optimis- 
tic fellow. The morals and manners of the people whom the 
companions met were not flattering. 

Many American readers resented this story after extending 
so much kindness to Dickens as their guest. Among the leading 
characters in the book are; Tom and Ruth Pinch, Pecksniff, Sarah 
Gamp and Betsy Prig. 

The selections are from Chapters XXXIX and XXXVI 
respectively. 



RUTH PINCH AND HER HOUSEKEEPING 

Pleasant little Ruth ! Cheerful, tidy, bustling, 
quiet little Ruth ! No doll's house ever yielded 
greater delight to its young mistress than little 
Ruth derived from her glorious dominion over 
the triangular parlor and the two small bed- 
rooms. 

To be Tom's housekeeper. What dignity ! 
Housekeeping, upon the commonest terms, asso- 
ciated itself with elevated responsibilities of all 
sorts and kinds ; but housekeeping for Tom im- 
plied the utmost complication of grave trusts 
and mighty charges. Well might she take the 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 125 

keys out of the little chiffonier 1 which held the 
tea and sugar, and out of the two little damp 
cupboards down by the fireplace, where the very 
black beetles got mouldy and had the shine taken 
out of their backs by envious mildew, and jingle 
them upon a ring before Tom's eyes when he 
came down to breakfast. 

Well might she, laughing musically, put them 
up in that blessed little pocket of hers with a 
merry pride ! For it was such a grand novelty to 
be mistress of anything, that if she had been the 
most relentless and despotic of all little house- 
keepers, she might have pleaded just that much 
for her excuse, and have been honorably ac- 
quitted. 

So far from being despotic, however, there 
w r as a coyness about her very way of pouring 
out the tea which Tom quite revelled in. And 
when she asked him what he would like to have 
for dinner, and faltered out " chops," as a reason- 
ably good suggestion after their last night's suc- 
cessful supper, Tom grew quite facetious and 
rallied her desperately. 

"I don't know, Tom," said his sister, blush- 
ing, " I am not quite confident, but I think I 
could make a beefsteak pudding, if I tried, 
Tom." 

"In the whole catalogue of cookery, there is 
nothing I should like so much as a beefsteak 

1 Shiffdner' : a movable closet. 



126 A DICKENS READER 

pudding!" cried Tom, slapping his leg to give 
greater force to this reply. 

"Yes, dear, that's excellent! But if it should 
happen not to come quite right the first time," his 
sister faltered ; " if it should happen not to be a 
pudding exactly, but should turn out a stew, or 
a soup, or something of that sort, you '11 not be 
vexed, Tom, will you ? " 

The serious way in which she looked at Tom ; 
the way in which Tom looked at her ; and the 
way in which she gradually broke into a merry 
laugh at her own expense, would have enchanted 
you. 

"Why," said Tom, " this is capital. It gives us 
a new and quite uncommon interest in the din- 
ner. We put into a lottery for a beefsteak pud- 
ding and it is impossible to say what we may get. 
We may make some wonderful discovery, per- 
haps, and produce such a dish as never was known 
before." 

"I shall not be at all surprised if we do, Tom," 
returned his sister, still laughing merrily, " or if 
it should prove to be such a dish as we shall not 
be anxious to produce again ; but the meat must 
come out of the saucepan at last, somehow or 
other, you know. We can't cook it into nothing at 
all ; that 's a great comfort. So if you like to 
venture, / will." 

"I have not the least doubt," rejoined Tom, 
"that it will come out an excellent pudding; or, 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 127 

at all events, I am sure that I shall think so. 
There is naturally something so handy and brisk 
about you, Ruth, that if you said you could make 
a bowl of faultless turtle soup, I should believe 

you." 

And Tom was right. She was precisely that 
sort of person. Nobody ought to have been able to 
resist her coaxing manner, and nobody had any 
business to try. Yet she never seemed to know it 
was her manner at all. That was the best of it. 

Well ! she washed up the breakfast cups, chat- 
ting away the whole time, and telling Tom all 
sorts of anecdotes about the brass-and-copper 
founder ; put everything in its place; made the 
room as neat as herself; — you must not suppose 
its shape was half as neat as hers though, or 
anything like it ; — and brushed Tom's old hat 
round and round and round again, until it was 
as sleek as Mr. Pecksniff. 1 

Then she discovered that Tom's shirt-collar 
was frayed at the edge, and flying upstairs for a 
needle and thread, came flying down again with 
her thimble on, and set it right with wonderful 
expertness. . . . She had no sooner done this than 
off she was again ; and there she stood once more, 
as brisk and busy as a bee, tying that compact 
little chin of hers into an equally compact little 
bonnet ; intent on bustling out to the butcher's, 
without a minute's loss of time ; and inviting Tom 

1 Another character in the story. 



128 A DICKENS READER 

to come and see the steak cut, with his own 
eyes. 

To see the butcher slap the steak, before he 
laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharp- 
ening, was to forget breakfast instantly. . . . 

Back they went to the lodgings again, after 
they had bought some eggs and flour, and such 
small matters ; and Tom sat gravely down to 
write at one end of the parlor table, while Ruth 
prepared to make the pudding at the other end. 
. . . First, she tripped downstairs into the kitchen 
for the flour, then for the pie-board, then for 
the eggs, then for the butter, then for a jug of 
water, then for the rolling-pin, then for a pud- 
ding-basin, then for the pepper, then for the salt; 
making a separate journey for everything, and 
laughing every time she started off afresh. 

When all the materials were collected, she 
was horrified to find that she had no apron on, 
and so ran up stairs, by way of variety, to fetch 
it. ... And then there were her cuffs to be tucked 
up, for fear of flour ; and she had a little ring 
to pull off her finger, which would n't come off ; 
and during the whole of these preparations she 
looked demurely now and then at Tom, from 
under her dark eye-lashes, as if they were all a 
part of the pudding, and indispensable to its 
composition. . . . 

Such a busy little woman as she was ! So full 
of self-importance, and trying so hard not to 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 129 

smile, or seem uncertain about anything ! It was 
a perfect treat to Tom to see her with her brows 
knit and her rosy lips pursed up, kneading away 
at the crust, rolling it out, cutting it up into 
strips, lining the basin with it, shaving it off fine 
round the rim ; chopping up the steak into small 
pieces, raining down pepper and salt upon them, 
packing them into the basin, pouring in cold 
water for gravy ; and never venturing to steal a 
look in his direction, lest her gravity should 
be disturbed. 

At last, the basin being quite full and only 
wanting the top crust, she clapped her hands, all 
covered with paste and flour, at Tom, and burst 
out heartily into such a charming little laugh of 
triumph, that the pudding need have had no 
other seasoning to commend it to the taste of any 
reasonable man on earth. 

[Before the dinner is served, Tom Pinch goes 
out with his friend John Westlock, and, return- 
ing, brings the friend to dine.] 

The table was already spread for dinner ; and 
though it was spread with nothing very choice 
in the way of glass or linen, and with green- 
handled knives, and very mountebanks of two- 
pronged forks, it wanted neither damask, silver, 
gold, nor china : no, nor any other garniture at 
all. There it was ; and being there, nothing else 
would have done as well. 

The success of that initiative dish, that first 



i 3 o A DICKENS READER 

experiment of hers in cookery, was so entire, so 
unalloyed and perfect, that John Westlock and 
Tom agreed she must have been studying the 
art in secret for a long time past. 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 131 



TOM PINCH GOES TO LONDON, 

When the coach came round at last, with 
u London" blazoned in letters of gold upon the 
boot, it gave Tom such a turn, that he was half 
disposed to run away. Bat he didn't do it; for 
he took his seat upon the box instead, and look- 
ing down upon the four grays, felt as if he were 
another gray himself, or, at all events, a part of 
the turn-out, and was quite confused by the nov- 
elty and splendor of his situation. 

And really it might have confused a less mod- 
est man than Tom to find himself sitting next to 
that coachman ; for of all the swells that ever 
flourished a whip, professionally, he might have 
been elected emperor. He didn't handle his 
gloves like another man, but put them on — 
even when he was standing on the pavement, 
quite detached from the coach — as if the four 
grays were, somehow or other, at the ends of 
the fingers. It was the same with his hat. He did 
things with his hat, which nothing but an unlim- 
ited knowledge of horses and the wildest free- 
dom of the road could ever have made him per- 
fect in. 

Valuable little parcels were brought to him 
with particular instructions, and he pitched them 
into this hat, and stuck it on again ; as if the laws 
of gravity did not admit of its being knocked off 



i 3 2 A DICKENS READER 

or blown off, and nothing like an accident could 
befall it. 

The guard, too ! Seventy breezy miles a day 
were written in his very whiskers. His manners 
were a canter, his conversation a round trot. He 
was a fast coach upon a downhill turnpike road ; 
he was all pace. A wagon couldn't have moved 
slowly with that guard and his key-bugle on the 
top of it. . . . 

It was a charming evening, mild and bright. 
And even with the weight upon his mind which 
arose out of the immensity and uncertainty of 
London, Tom could not resist the captivating 
sense of rapid motion through the pleasant air. 
The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked 
it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in 
as high spirits as the grays; the coachman chimed 
in sometimes with his voice; the wheels hummed 
cheerfully in unison ; the brass-work on the har- 
ness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus, 
as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly 
on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the 
leaders' coupling-reins to the handle of the hind 
boot, was one great instrument of music. 

Yoho, past hedges, gates, and trees ; past cot- 
tages and barns, and people going home from 
work. Yoho, past donkey-chaises drawn aside into 
the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, 
whipped up at a bound upon the little water- 
course, and held by struggling carters close to 




TOM PINCH STARTS FOR LONDON 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 133 

the five-barred gate, until the coach had passed 
the narrow turning in the road. 

Yoho, by churches dropped down by themselves 
in quiet nooks, with rustic burial-grounds about 
them, where the graves are green, and daisies 
sleep — for it is evening — on the bosoms of the 
dead. 

Yoho, past streams, in which the cattle cool 
their feet, and where the rushes grow T ; past pad- 
dock-fences, farms and rick-yards ; past last 
year's stacks, cut, slice by slice, away, and show- 
ing, in the waning light, like ruined gables, old 
and brown. Yoho, down the pebbly dip, and 
through the merry water-splash, and up at a can- 
ter to the level road again. Yoho ! Yoho ! . . . 

Yoho, among the gathering shades; making 
of no account the deep reflections of the trees, 
but scampering on through light and darkness, all 
the same, as if the light of London, fifty miles 
away, were quite enough to travel by, and some 
to spare. Yoho, beside the village green, where 
cricket-players linger yet, and every little inden- 
tation made in the fresh grass by bat or wicket, 
ball or player's foot, sheds out its perfume on the 
night. 

Away with four fresh horses from the Bald- 
faced Stag, where topers congregate about the 
door admiring; and the last team with traces 
hanging loose, go roaming off towards the pond, 
until observed and shouted after by a dozen 



i 3 4 A DICKENS READER 

throats, while volunteering boys pursue them. 
Now with a clattering of hoofs and striking out 
of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge, and 
down again into the shadowy road, and through 
the open gate, and far away, away, into the 
wold. Yoho ! . . . 

See the bright moon ! High up before we know 
it, making the earth reflect the objects on its 
breast like water. Hedges, trees, low cottages, 
church steeples, blighted stumps and flourishing 
young slips, have all grown vain upon the sud- 
den, and mean to contemplate their own fair 
images till morning. . . . The moss-grown gate, 
ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and 
decayed, swings to and fro before its glass, like 
some fantastic dowager ; while our own ghostly 
likeness travels on, Yoho ! Yoho ! through ditch 
and brake, upon the ploughed land and the 
smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, 
as if it were a phantom-hunter. 

Clouds too! And a mist upon the hollow! 
Not a dull fog that hides it, but a light airy 
gauze-like mist, which in our eyes of modest ad- 
miration gives a new charm to the beauties it is 
spread before. Yoho ! Why, now we travel like 
the moon herself. Hiding this minute in a grove 
of trees ; next minute in a patch of vapor ; 
emerging now upon our broad clear course; 
withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our 
journey is a counterpart of hers. 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 135 

The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when 
day comes leaping up. Yoho ! Two stages, and 
the country roads are almost changed to a con- 
tinuous street. Yoho, past market-gardens, rows 
of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and squares ; 
past wagons, coaches, carts ; past early workmen, 
late stragglers, drunken men, and sober carriers 
of loads ; past brick and mortar in its every 
shape ; and in among the rattling pavements, 
where a jaunty seat upon a coach is not so easy 
to preserve. 

Yoho, down countless turnings, and through 
countless mazy ways, until an old inn-yard is 
gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down, quite 
stunned and giddy, is in London ! 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 

Sketches by Boz was published in 1835. 

The critics at once recognized genius and the hand of a mas- 
ter. These sketches were " illustrative of every-day life and 
every-day people." This was the first book published by Dickens. 
The book was regarded as unusually clever of its kind and it 
attracted wide and immediate attention. The demand was great- 
er than the supply. In the book are mentioned many characters 
which were introduced and more fully developed in Dickens's 
later works. 

The selection is from Chapter VII. 



OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR 

They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, 
and his mother, a lady of about fifty, or it might 
be less. The mother wore a widow's weeds, and 
the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They 
were poor, — very poor ; for their only means of 
support arose from a pittance the boy earned by 
copying writings, and translating for booksellers. 

They had removed from some country place 
and settled in London ; partly because it afforded 
better chance of employment for the boy, and 
partly, perhaps, with the natural desire to leave 
a place where they had been in better circum- 
stances, and where their poverty was known. 
They were proud under these reverses, and above 
revealing their wants and privations to strangers. 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 137 

How bitter their privations were, and how 
hard the boy worked to remove them, no one 
ever knew but themselves. Night after night, 
two, three, four hours after midnight, could we 
hear the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, 
or the hollow aud half -stifled cough which indi- 
cated his being still at work; and day after day, 
we could see more plainly that nature had set 
that unearthly light in his plaintive face, which 
is the beacon of her worst disease. 

Actuated, we hope, by a better feeling than 
mere curiosity, we contrived to establish, first an 
acquaintance, and then a close intimacy with the 
poor strangers. Our worst fears were realized; 
the boy was sinking fast. Through a part of the 
winter, and the whole of the following spring 
and summer, his labors were unceasingly pro- 
longed ; and the mother attempted to procure 
needlework embroidery, — anything for bread. A 
few shillings, now and then, were all she could 
earn. The boy worked steadily on ; dying by 
minutes, but never once giving utterance* to com- 
plaint or murmur. 

One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay 
our customary visit to the invalid. His little re- 
maining strength had been decreasing rapidly 
for two or three days preceding, and he was 
lying on the sofa at the open window, gazing at 
the setting sun. His mother had been reading 
the Bible to him, for she closed the book as we 
entered, and advanced to meet us. 



i 3 8 A DICKENS READER 

"I was telling William/' she said, "that we 
must manage to take him into the country some- 
where, so that he may get quite well. He is not 
ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and has 
exerted himself too much lately." Poor thing ! 
The tears that streamed through her fingers, as 
she turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow's 
cap, too plainly showed how fruitless was the at- 
tempt to deceive herself. 

We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said 
nothing, for we saw the breath of life was pass- 
ing gently but rapidly from the young form be- 
fore us. At every respiration, his heart beat more 
slowly. 

The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his 
mother's arm with the other, drew her hastily 
towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek. 
There was a pause. He sank back upon his pil- 
low, and looked long and earnestly at his mother's 
face. 

" William, William ! " murmured the mother, 
after a long interval, " don't look at me so — 
speak to me dear ! " The boy smiled languidly, 
but an instant afterward his features resolved 
into the same cold, solemn gaze. 

" William, dear William, rouse yourself, dear; 
don't look at me so, love, pray don't ! Oh, my 
God ! what shall I do ! " cried the widow, clasping 
her hands in agony — " my dear boy ! he is dying ! " 

The boy raised himself by a violent effort, and 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 139 

folded his hands together. " Mother, dear, dear 
mother, bury me in the open fields — anywhere 
but in these dreadful streets. I should like to be 
where you can see my grave, but not in these 
close crowded streets ; they have killed me. Kiss 
me again, mother; put vour arms round my 
neck — " 

He fell back, and a strange expression stole 
upon his features ; not of pain or suffering, but 
an indescribable fixing of every line and muscle. 
The boy was dead. 



BARNABY RUDGE 

Barnaby Rudge was published in 1841. This was Dickens's 
fifth novel. 

Barnaby is a poor, affectionate but simple-minded lad. He 
lives in London with his mother and his raven, Grip. His mother 
had fled to London to escape a mysterious blackmailer. His 
father had been involved in a murder when he was steward to a 
country gentleman, named Haredale, who had been killed. The 
" No Popery " riots of Lord George Gordon, in 1780, figure in 
the plot. The account of the gathering of the mob, their famous 
inarch, and the storming of Newgate is unsurpassed in modern 
fiction. 

This story contains excellent humor and ludicrous situations. 
Many of the descriptions are masterly, among which are those of 
the old English inn, the Maypole, near Epping Forest, and an 
old innkeeper. 

The selection is from Chapter LX1V. 



THE BURNING PRISON 

And now the strokes began to fall like hail 
upon the gate and on the strong building ; for 
those who could not reach the door spent their 
fierce rage on anything — even on the great 
blocks of stone, which shivered their weapons 
into fragments and made their hands and arms 
to tingle as if the walls were active in their stout 
resistance, and dealt them back their blows. 

The clash of iron ringing upon iron mingled 
with the deafening tumult and sounded high 
above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled on 



BARNABY RUDGE 141 

the nailed and plated door ; the sparks flew off 
in showers ; men worked in gangs, and at short 
intervals relieved each other, that all their strength 
might be devoted to the work ; but there stood 
the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as 
ever, and, save for the dints upon its battered 
surface, quite unchanged. 

Some brought all their energies to bear upon 
this toilsome task ; and some, rearing ladders 
against the prison, tried to clamber to the summit 
of the walls they were too short to scale ; and 
some again engaged a body of police a hundred 
strong, and beat them back and trod them under 
foot by force of numbers ; others besieged the 
house on which the jailer had appeared, and, driv- 
ing in the door, brought out his furniture and 
piled it up against the prison gate to make a 
bonfire which should burn it down. 

As soon as this device was understood, all those 
who had labored hitherto, cast down their tools 
and helped to swell the heap, which reached half- 
way across the street, and was so high that those 
who threw more fuel on the top got up by ladders. 
When all the keeper's goods were flung upon 
this costly pile, to the last fragment, they smeared 
it with the pitch and tar and resin they had 
brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To 
all the woodwork round the prison doors they 
did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. 
This infernal christening performed, they fired 



142 A DICKENS READER 

the pile with lighted matches and with blazing 
tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result. 

The furniture being very dry, and rendered 
more combustible by wax and oil, besides the 
arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames 
roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison 
wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning 
serpents. 

At first the men crowded round the blaze and 
vented their exultation only in their looks; but 
when it ^rew hotter and fiercer — when it crac- 
kled, leaped, and roared, like a great furnace — 
when it shone upon the opposite houses, and 
lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces 
at the windows, but the inmost corners of each 
habitation — when, through the deep red heat 
and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying 
with the door, now clinging to its obdurate sur- 
face, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and 
soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold 
it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin — 
. . . when scores of objects, never seen before, 
burst upon the view, and things the most familiar 
put on some new aspect — then the mob began to 
join the whirl, and, with loud yells and shouts, 
and clamor, such as happily is seldom heard, be- 
stirred themselves to feed the fire and keep it at 
its height. . . . 

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar 
and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile 



BARNABY RUDGE 143 

heaped up again the burning fragments that came 
toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, 
which, although a sheet of flame, was still a door 
fast locked and barred, and kept them out. Great 
pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above 
the people's heads to such as stood about the 
ladders, and some of these, climbing to the top- 
most stave, and holding on with one hand by the 
prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to 
cast these firebrands on the roof or down into 
the yards within. 

In many instances their efforts were successful; 
which occasioned a new and appalling addition 
to the horrors of the scene : for the prisoners 
within, seeing from between their bars that the 
fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, 
and being all locked up in their cells for the 
night, began to know that they were in danger 
of being burnt alive. • . . 

Nor were the assailants alone affected by the 
outcry from within the prison. The women, who 
were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands 
together, stopped their ears, and many fainted. 
The men who were not near the walls and active 
in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the 
pavement of the street, and did so with a haste 
and fury they could not have surpassed if that 
had been the jail, and they were near their object. 
Not one living creature in the throng was for an 
instant still. The whole great mass were mad. 



i 4 4 A DICKENS READER 

A shout ! Another ! Another yet, though few 
knew why, or what it meant. But those around 
the gate had seen it slowly yield, and drop from 
its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but 
one ; yet it was upright still, because of the bar, 
and its having sunk, of its own weight, into the 
heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap 
at the top of the doorway, through which could 
be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and 
dark. Pile up the fire ! 

It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and 
the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their 
faces with their hands, and standing as if in 
readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark 
figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, 
some carried in the arms of others, were seen to 
pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could 
hold out no longer. The keeper, and his officers, 
and their wives and children, were escaping. Pile 
up the fire ! 

The door sank down again : it settled deeper 
in the cinders — tottered — yielded — was down ! 

As they shouted again, they fell back for a 
moment, and left a clear space about the fire 
that lay between them and the jail entry. One 
of them leapt upon the blazing heap, and, scatter- 
ing a train of sparks into the air, and making 
the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon 
his dress, dashed into the jail. 

The hangman followed. And then so many 



BARNABY RUDGE 145 

rushed upon their track, that the fire got trodden 
down and thinly strewn about the street; but 
there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, 
the prison was in flames. 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 1 

THE COLISEUM 

We said to the coachman, " Go to the Coli- 
seum." In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped 
at the gate, and we went in. 

It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest truth, 
to say — so suggestive and distinct it is at this 
hour — that for a moment — actually in passing 
in — they who will may have the whole great pile 
before them, as it used to be, with thousands of 
eager faces staring down into the arena, and such 
a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust, going on 
there, as no language can describe. 

Its solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter deso- 
lation strike upon the stranger the next moment, 
like a softened sorrow ; and never in his life, per- 
haps, will he be so moved and overcome by any 
sight not immediately connected with his own 
affections and afflictions. 

To see it crumbling there, an inch a year ; its 
walls and arches overgrown with green ; its corri- 
dors open to the day ; the long grass growing in 
its porches; young trees of yesterday springing 
up on its ragged parapets,and bearing fruit, chance 
products of the seeds dropped there by the birds 

1 Published in 1845. 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 147 

that build their nests within its chinks and cran- 
nies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth, 
and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre ; to 
climb into its upper halls and look down on ruin, 
ruin, ruin all about it; the triumphal arches of Con- 
stan tine, Septimus Severus, 1 and Titus; the Roman 
Forum ; the Palace of the Caesars ; the temples of 
the old religion, fallen down and gone ; this is to 
see the ghost of old Rome, wicked, wonderful old 
city, haunting the very ground on which its peo- 
ple trod. 

It is the most impressive, the most stately, the 
most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight 
conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can 
the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and run- 
ning over with the lustiest life, have moved one 
heart as it must move all who look upon it now, 
a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin! 

1 Sep' ti mus S§ ve' rus. 



i 4 8 A DICKENS READER 



THE BURIED CITIES OF ITALY 

Stand at the bottom of the great market-place 
of Pompeii, and look up the silent streets, through 
the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the 
broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open 
to the day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and 
snowy in the peaceful distance ; and lose all count 
of time, and heed of other things, in the strange 
and melancholy sensation of seeing the destroyed 
and destroyer making this quiet picture in the 
sun. 

Then ramble on, and see, at every turn, the 
little familiar tokens of human habitation and 
everyday pursuits ; the chafing of the bucket- 
rope in the stone rim of the exhausted well ; the 
track of carriage wheels in the pavement of the 
street ; the marks of drinking vessels on the 
stone counter of the wine shop ; the Amphorae 1 
in private cellars, stored away so many hundred 
years ago, and undisturbed to this hour — all 
rendering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness 
of the place ten thousand times more solemn than 
if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from 
the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea. 

After it was shaken by the earthquake, which 
preceded the eruption, workmen were employed 

1 Am'-fo-re : jars with two handles ; jars tapering at the bot- 
tom ; used for holding wines, oils, etc. 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 149 

in shaping out, in stone, new ornaments for tem- 
ples and other buildings that had suffered. Here 
lies their work, outside the city gate, as if they 
would return to-morrow. . . . 

Next to the wonder of going up and down 
the streets, and in and out of the houses, and 
traversing the secret chambers of the temples of 
a religion that has vanished from the earth, and 
finding so many traces of remote antiquity, — 
as if the course of Time had been stopped after 
this desolation, and there had been no nights 
and days, months, years, and centuries since, — 
nothing is more impressive and terrible than the 
many evidences of the searching nature of the 
ashes, as bespeaking their irresistible power, and 
the impossibility of escaping them. 

In the wine cellars, they forced their way into 
the earthen vessels, displacing the wine and 
choking them, to the brim, with dust. In the 
tombs, they forced the ashes of the dead from 
the funeral urns, and rained new ruin even into 
them. The mouths and eyes and skulls of all the 
skeletons were stuffed with this terrible hail. In 
Herculaneum, where the flood was of a different 
and heavier kind, it rolled in like a sea. Imagine 
a deluge of water turned into marble, at its height 
— and that is what is called " the lava " here. . . . 

Many of the paintings on the walls in the 
roofless chambers of both cities, or carefully re- 
moved to the museum at Naples, are as fresh 



ISO A DICKENS READER 

and plain as if they had been executed yesterday. 
Here are the subjects of still life, as provisions, 
dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like ; familiar 
classical stories, or mythological fables, always 
forcibly and plainly told; conceits of cupids, 
quarreling, sporting, working at trades ; theatrical 
rehearsals ; poets reading their productions to 
their friends; inscriptions chalked upon the walls; 
political squibs, advertisements, rough drawings 
by schoolboys ; everything to people and restore 
the ancient cities, in the fancy of the wondering 
visitor. 

Furniture, too, you see, of every kind — lamps, 
tables, couches ; vessels for eating, drinking, and 
cooking ; workmen's tools, surgical instruments, 
tickets for the theatre, pieces of money, personal 
ornaments, bunches of keys found clenched in 
the grasp of skeletons, helmets of guards and 
warriors ; little household bells, yet musical with 
their old domestic tones. 

The least among these objects lends its aid to 
swell the interest of Vesuvius, and invest it with 
a perfect fascination. Then looking, from either 
ruined city, into the neighboring grounds over- 
grown with beautiful vines and luxuriant trees, 
and remembering that house upon house, temple on 
temple, building after building, and street after 
street, are still lying underneath the roots of all 
the quiet cultivation, waiting to be turned up to 
the light of day, is something so wonderful, so 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 151 

full of mystery, so captivating to the imagination, 
that one would think it would be paramount, and 
yield to nothing else. 

To nothing but Vesuvius : but the mountain 
is the genius of the scene. From every indication 
of the ruin it has worked, we look, again, with 
an absorbing interest, to where its smoke is rising 
up into the sky. It is beyond us, as we thread the 
ruined streets ; above us, as we stand upon the 
ruined walls ; we follow it through every vista of 
broken columns, as we wander through the empty 
courtyards of the houses; and through the gar- 
landings and interfacings of every wandering vine. 



152 A DICKENS READER 



AN ASCENT OF MOUNT VESUVIUS 

The sun is shining brightly ; there is not a 
cloud or speck of vapor in the whole blue sky, 
looking down upon the Bay of Naples ; and the 
moon will be full to-night. No matter that the 
snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesu- 
vius, or that we have been on foot all day at 
Pompeii, 1 or that croakers maintain that stran- 
gers should not be on the mountain by night, in 
such an unusual season. Let us take advantage 
of the fine weather; make the best of our way to 
Resina, 2 the little village at the foot of the moun- 
tain ; prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so 
short notice, at the guide's house ; ascend at once, 
and have sunset halfway up, moonlight at the 
top, and midnight to come down in. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, there is a ter- 
rible uproar in the little stable-yard of Signor 
Salvatore, 3 the recognized head-guide, with the 
gold band round his cap ; and thirty under-guides, 
who are all scuffling and screaming at once, 
are preparing half-a-dozen saddled ponies, three 
litters, and some stout staves, for the journey. 
Every one of the thirty, quarrels with the other 
twenty-nine, and frightens the six ponies ; and as 
much of the village as can possibly squeeze itself 

1 Pom pa' ye. 2 Ra se' na. 3 Se nyor' Sal va to' re. 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 153 

into the little stable-yard participates in the tu- 
mult and gets trodden on by the cattle. 

After much violent skirmishing, and more noise 
than would suffice for the storming of Naples, the 
procession starts. The head-guide, who is liber- 
ally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in 
advance of the party; the thirty other guides 
proceed on foot. Eight go forward with the lit- 
ters that are to be used by-and-by; and the 
remaining two-and-twenty beg. 

We ascend gradually, by stony lanes like 
rough, broad flights of stairs, for some time. At 
length we leave these, and the vineyards on either 
side of them, and emerge upon a bleak, bare region 
where the lava lies confusedly, in enormous rusty 
masses, as if the earth had been ploughed up by 
burning thunderbolts. And now we halt to see 
the sun set. The change that falls upon the 
dreary region and on the whole mountain, as its 
red light fades and the night comes on — and 
the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that 
reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever 
forget ! 

It is dark, when, after winding for some time 
over the broken ground, we arrive at the foot of 
the cone, which is extremely steep, and seems to 
rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where 
we dismount. The only light is reflected from the 
snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the cone 
is covered. 



i54 A DICKENS READER 

It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. 
The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing 
that the moon will rise before we reach the top. 
Two litters are devoted to the two ladies ; the 
third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, 
whose hospitality and good-nature have attached 
him to the expedition, and determined him to 
assist in doing the honors of the mountain. The 
rather heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men ; 
each of the ladies by half-a-dozen. We who walk 
make the best use of our staves. And so the 
whole party begin to labor upward over the 
snow. . . . 

From tingeing the top of the snow above us 
with a band of light, and pouring it in a stream 
through the valley below, while we have been 
ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the 
whole white mountain side and the broad sea 
down below, and tiny Naples in the distance, 
and every village in the country round. 

The whole prospect is in this lovely state, when 
we come upon the platform on the mountain-top 
— the region of fire — an exhausted crater formed 
of great masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of 
stone from some tremendous waterfall, burnt up ; 
from every chink and crevice of which, hot, sul- 
phurous smoke is pouring out, while from another 
conical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising 
abruptly from this platform at the end, great 
sheets of flame are streaming forth, reddening 



PICTURES FROM ITALY 155 

the night with flame, blackening it with smoke, 
and spotting it with red hot stones and cinders 
that fly up into the air like feathers and fall down 
like lead. What words can paint the gloom and 
grandeur of this scene ! 

The broken ground ; the smoke ; the sense of 
suffocation from the sulphur ; the fear of falling 
down through the crevices in the yawning ground; 
the stopping, every now and then, for somebody 
who is missing in the dark (for the dense smoke 
now obscures the moon) ; the intolerable noise of 
the thirty ; and the hoarse roaring of the moun- 
tain ; these make it a scene of such confusion, at 
the same time, that we reel again. . . . 

There is something in the fire and roar that 
generates an irresistible desire to get nearer to it. 
We cannot rest long without starting off, two of 
-as, on our hands and knees, accompanied by the 
.aead-guide, to climb to the brim of the flaming 
crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile, the thirty 
yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous pro- 
ceeding, and call to us to come back, frightening 
:he rest of the party out of their wits. 

What with their noise, and what with the 
irembling of the thin crust of ground, that seems 
about to open underneath our feet and plunge us 
In the burning gulf below (which is the real dan- 
ger, if there be any) ; and what with the flashing 
of the fire in our faces, and the shower of red-hot 
ashes that is raining down, and the choking 



156 A DICKENS READER 

smoke and sulphur ; we may well feel giddy and 
irrational, like drunken men. 

But we contrive to climb up to the brim, and 
look down, for a moment, into the hell of boiling 
fire below. Then we all three came rolling down ; 
blackened, and singed, and scorched, and hot, 
and giddy ; and each with his dress alight in 
half-a-dozen places. 



ALPHABETICAL LIST OP DICKENS'S MORE 
IMPORTANT WORKS 

With the dates of first publication. 

Barnaby Rudge, 1841. 

Bleak House, 1852. 

Boy at Mugby, The, 1866. 

Christmas Carol, The, 1843. 

Cricket on the Hearth, The, 1845. 

David Copperfield, 1849-50. 

Doctor Marigold, 1865. 

Dombey and Son, 1846-48. 

Great Expectations, 1861. 

Hard Times, 1854. 

Hunted Down, 1859. 

Little Dorrit, 1855-57. 

Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843-44. 

Mystery of Edwin Drood, The, 1870. 

Nicholas Nickleby, 1838-39. 

Old Curiosity Shop, The, 1840-41. 

Oliver Twist, 1837-39. 

Our Mutual Friend, 1864-65. 

Pickwick Papers, The, 1836-37. 

Sketches by Boz, 1836. 

Tale of Two Cities, A, 1850. 

Uncommercial Traveler, The, 1860. 

REFERENCES 

Forster's Life of Dickens. 

Fields's Yesterdays With Authors, 

Taine's English Literature. 

Kate Field's Pen Pictures. 

"A Visit to Charles Dickens,'' by Hans Christian Andersen, 
Eclectic Magazine, May-August, 1864. 

" Footprints of Charles Dickens," Harper's Magazine, Septem- 
ber, 1870. 



158 REFERENCES 

" Works of Dickens," by W. F. Lord, Living Age, December 19, 
1903. 

"Around London with Dickens," Education, 24 : 333-339. 

"Christmas with Irving, Thackeray and Dickens," Critic, De- 
cember, 1905. 

" Dramatic Element in Dickens," Living Age, September 23, 
1905. 

" Secret of Dickens," Living Age, December 2, 1905. 

" With Dickens at the Christmas Hearth " (poem), Critic, 
December, 1905. 

" Critical Study of Dickens," Bookman, November, 1906. 

" Drawings of Dickens's Greatest Characters," Reader Maga- 
zine, July, 1906. 



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